


The Melancholy of Shinigami Ryuk

by halfeatenmoon



Series: The Melancholy of Shinigami Ryuk [2]
Category: Death Note, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu | The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-09
Updated: 2009-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Death Note falls into the hands, not of an ordinary human being, but Haruhi Suzumiya, the world becomes more 'interesting' in a way that Ryuk never would have expected and Kyon never would have wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

It wasn’t quite winter yet, but the weather was already getting cold, and the last of the leaves were falling from the trees.  At the moment climbing up the hill to school was bearable, but soon it would be freezing cold every day, so much so that I’ll be struggling to move like an old man with arthritis to walk to school every morning.  But today the morning cool is quite pleasant.  There’s a taste of ice there, though, left over from last night; the days might be pleasant, but this week the temperatures have dropped so far that even in bed at night I can’t quite get warm enough.  No matter how cold it gets, my mother insists that since it’s not technically winter until December, we can’t use the heater yet, so I have to lie in bed and shiver.  At least it’s better than being outside, right?

 

Naturally, last weekend, on the first truly bone-chilling night of the season, Haruhi forced us all to meet at the school at night to investigate a rumour that there was a ghost of a former student haunting the school who only appeared on Sunday evenings.  She ignored my complaints about the cold, of course, and Koizumi told me that I sound enough like an old man already without complaining about my bones.  Nagato just stared at me and said nothing; perhaps she doesn’t feel the cold.  Only the beautiful Asahina Mikuru had any sympathy for me, and when she looked at me sadly with those wonderful brown eyes I thought she must feel the same way I do, and surely as a gentleman I should go and hold her so as to warm her with my meagre body heat…

 

But I am forgetting myself.

 

Other than that, the SOS Brigade has been quiet lately.  Haruhi seems to have been more subdued, a little more like her old melancholy self, and all our afternoons are spent sitting in the clubroom.  Haruhi talks, but she sometimes becomes bored even with her own ideas – the only thing that keeps her interested is buying new costumes for Asahina-san.  Where does she get the money for all these expensive cosplays?  Surely she wouldn’t get into anything so boring as a part-time job.  Nagato does nothing but sit and read, and I, as always, spend my time beating Koizumi at board games.  I would have thought that with the mental powers of an esper he would be excellent at strategy, but his skills are so bad that playing with him is utterly boring.  In fact, the whole club is boring.  As troublesome as Haruhi’s ideas can be, they always keep us occupied, so I never thought it possible that the SOS Brigade could become dull.  Yet that’s exactly what is happening now.  Even Asahina-san’s tea doesn’t make it worth going to the club room any more.  It seems that Haruhi has simply run out of ridiculous things for our ridiculous club to do.

 

“Why do you sound so dejected about it?  I would have thought that Kyon would be happy that Suzumiya-san is calming down.”

 

Despite the steep incline of the hill, Koizumi doesn’t break a sweat and still manages to smile widely.  You’re not even panting?  Are you sure you’re a human?

 

“Who knows?  What is a human, anyway?” he asked, with that infuriating smile again.  “But you are always so troubled both by Suzumiya’s schemes and by the messes that her desires create without her knowledge.  Aren’t you more content now that you don’t have to deal with them?”

 

Of course I don’t want to be trapped in strange alternate dimensions or desert islands any more, nor waste time filming Haruhi’s directionless movies and keeping her from changing the fabric of reality while she does it, but all the same, it can’t been denied that those things were… interesting.

 

“But with nothing happening, Haruhi will become bored or depressed again, and that isn’t good either, is it?  Especially for you?”

 

Itsuki nodded seriously.  “Indeed, the patterns of closed space…”  But he stopped almost immediately and put on his best, most impenetrable smile.  “Ah, but that is too grim a topic for so early in the morning.  All the same, perhaps we should be making more of an effort to keep Suzumiya-san occupied.”

 

Haruhi must be the most difficult person in the world.  There is no way to keep the situation stable; either she creating supernatural impossibilities to keep herself happy, or she is depressed and making strange dimensions with her subconscious that could destroy the world anyway.  Or at least create a new one.  But I especially don’t want to be trapped in one of THOSE again…

 

“Perhaps it would be helpful for you to take Suzumiya-san on a date?”  Koizumi suggested, before darting through the school gates and disappearing.  One day I’ll learn to ignore him, but that guy really pisses me off.  Or maybe one day I’ll just decide to punch him.

 

Still, the truth was that we did need to try to cheer Haruhi up before she did something crazy.  I had plenty of time to think about it while sitting at my desk during homeroom, and total peace and quiet, too – for the first time I could remember, Haruhi was late.  Regardless of all her other eccentricities, Haruhi was never late to school, and yet this morning the desk behind me was empty.

 

I tried to use the time to think of some way to alleviate Haruhi’s boredom.  It had to be something normal, surely, otherwise it would just encourage her to acts of further unnatural chaos.  No mysteries, no adventures, nothing that could lead to the sudden appearance of monsters or the slow disintegration of reality.  Yet all the ‘normal’ entertainments that I could think of – a trip to the movies, or a day of shopping, or even a party – would be brushed off by Haruhi as ‘boring’, ‘stupid’, ‘a waste of time’.  Am I being too negative?  I’ve never tried throwing a party before, so I don’t know for certain that Haruhi would be irritated by the ordinariness of such an activity.  And yet I was certain that she would be bored by it all the same.  And why?  Because even to me, these ideas seem boring now, and for some strange reason I find myself considering haunted houses, going on patrol in search of talking animals, or staying out all night watching the night sky for any sign of an alien space ship…

 

Ah, but it is easy to feel that ordinary life has become boring when one has been living it for long enough to forget all the trouble that Haruhi causes when she tries to make life more interesting.  I’m always reminded, when I begin to feel melancholy myself, that Haruhi’s idea of an interesting life is far more trouble than it is worth.  And the moment that she strode through the classroom door (with no apology to Okabe-sensei as whatever she is doing is of course far more important) I realised that now was the time to stop thinking of ways to distract Haruhi and start worrying about how to control the damage.

 

“Where have you been?”  She took her seat without bothering to apologise for her tardiness, because to Haruhi whatever she was doing was far more important than his inconsequential class.  Why don’t teachers understand this?  Are they all retarded?  This is definitely what Haruhi was thinking as she ignored the teacher’s feeble attempts to reprimand her.  He appeared flabbergasted and humiliated, but the rest of the class barely noticed, accustomed as we are, and as teachers are not, to Haruhi’s strange behaviours.  Compared to what we usually see of her, this is nothing!

 

“Where have you been?”  I turned around and asked her again, once she was safe in her desk behind me and the rest of the class had turned their attention back to the teacher.  If only I could be so attentive to such a mundane duty – but no, instead the duty that I have found myself landed with entirely against my will is the charge of minding this ‘God’ who has no idea of her own power, in the hope that I can stop her from inadvertently destroying the world or something equally disastrous.  Who chose me for this duty, and why didn’t I get a chance to say “no thanks”?  If ever the opportunity arises to say these words I will not let it slip by!

 

“I was showing the newest member of the SOS Brigade to the club room,” Haruhi said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world and I was clearly a moron for not somehow telepathically knowing everything about the task so important that she had to skip homeroom for it.

 

A new member?  I had thought that our club was already complete with all the characters you required.

 

“What are you, retarded?  A club is never complete, there are always new members!  If the SOS Brigade is to become successful we must recruit as many people as possible!”

 

I silently wondered who the new member could be.  Naturally the reason I thought the club must be complete is because we already had an alien, a time traveller and an esper as members, the three main supernatural beings that Haruhi was searching for.  And then there was me, the ordinary human who for some insane reason was chosen by God-knows-who as the person who is responsible for preventing disasters.  So who could a new member be?  Was this another weirdo hiding their identity from Suzumiya?  A slider perhaps?  Or maybe another hapless ordinary human like me, come to share my burden.  Ha!  Perhaps I can trick him into replacing me.  Goodbye, Haruhi!  Goodbye, stupid club!

 

“And besides,” Haruhi continued, “This member is special.”

 

Oh, really?  Another ‘mysterious’ transfer student, I suppose?  Although for a student to transfer this late in the year is not mysterious at all, merely stupid.

 

“No way, this person is _much_ more special.  He’s a god of death.”

 

Oh, of course it would be a god of death.  I knew there was something missing from a club.  A god of death is exactly what we need.

 

No, this is impossible!  Of course there is every chance that a god of death could become a member of our club considering the other three people we already have as members, but _how could Haruhi know his secret identity?_

 

“That’s… that can’t be true!”

 

“Moron.  Of course gods of death exist!  Haven’t you ever listened to anything I’ve said?”  She stared dreamily out the window and down onto the sports field.  “Kyon, you can’t imagine how happy I am right now.  This is what I’ve been waiting for!  I’ve finally found one, someone who will be fun!  And he chose _me_!”

 

Hmm, what does that mean for me, “the person chosen by Suzumiya”?  Can that title coexist with “the person who chose Suzumiya”?  Where Haruhi is concerned, I sometimes begin to question the existence of free choice.  But that is an academic point; there are more important things at stake!  Who the heck is this god of death person, and how does Haruhi know his true identity?  It goes against everything that has happened before.  As Koizumi said, because Haruhi wanted supernatural beings to exist, her desires created supernatural beings and events.  However, even though her heart wanted these things to exist, her common sense was more powerful and she did not truly believe that these things were possible, and so she remained completely unaware of them.  Of course, I have always found it difficult to believe that Haruhi has any common sense at all, let alone so much of it that it is powerful enough to outweigh her unlimited store of insanity.

 

But still, it seems to go against logic and past patterns to think that Suzumiya could become truly aware of the existence of a supernatural being.  Perhaps this ‘god of death’ is really an ordinary human playing a hoax, and who happened to find the one person insane enough to believe everything he says.  Yes, this must be what has happened.  What a jerk!  I feel the urge to punch him when I see him in the clubroom after school today.  He has no idea how much trouble and stress such an immature and unimaginative prank will cause me!

 

Haruhi was still staring out the window at the sports field, even though it was empty.  And then, quite strangely, she waved, as though there were really someone there, and then looked at me expectantly.

 

“Don’t you see him?” she asked, with a frown.

 

“See who?”

 

“Him!  The god of death!”  She pointed stubbornly out the window.  There was absolutely nobody on that field, and she was pointing at pure empty space.  Has this girl gone totally mad at last?

 

But when I squinted my eyes, I could see something.  A single red apple, which would appear to be suspended in mid-air – although surely that was merely some optical illusion due to the distance and the angle from which I saw it.  And yet even though I could explain away its apparent antigravity, what happened next was bizarre enough to give me chills.  At first I told myself that it was only the angle of the sunlight that made it appear that a bite had been taken out of the levitating apple.  But as I watched, another bite-sized chunk disappeared, and then another, until what had been a full, round, red apple was merely a core.  Finally, in two more bites, the remaining apple core vanished, presumably into the belly of this invisible beast.

 

This could not bode well for my peace of mind.


	2. Chapter 1

 “Everyone, I’d like you to meet the newest member of the SOS Brigade, the shinigami Ryuk!”

 

It seems to have become usual for the proclamations made by Haruhi at the SOS Brigade’s after school meetings to be greeted by a stunned silence by all the other members.  Nagato is always silent, Asahina trembles in anticipation of what embarrassing things Haruhi’s new plan will require of her, I remain stunned by the utter stupidity of our chief’s plans no matter how many of them I hear, and Koizumi seems to sit cheerfully by with his impenetrable smile, silently enjoying everyone else’s reactions, before finally breaking the silence by saying something like “What an excellent idea, Suzumiya-san.”

 

This time, however, even Itsuki’s determined smile faltered at Haruhi’s announcement; he truly looked confused.  Asahina was also confused by this particular development, looking around in bewilderment as though she was unsure of whether or not to be afraid.  Nagato, rather than reading her book without reacting as she usually would, stared and squinted her eyes slightly, which may as well be a gasp of shock when it comes from her.  It seems that for once I’m the only person who isn’t surprised.  Why should it be shocking to me that Haruhi has gone completely insane?  It was only ever a matter of time.

 

“There’s nobody there.”

 

“Don’t be a moron, Kyon!  You’re insulting our new member!  He’s right here.”

 

No, Haruhi, there really is nobody else in the room, just the five of us who are always here every afternoon.

 

“You should call me Chief when we’re in the club room!” she sniffed.

 

“That’s never been a rule before!”  I’m sure she’ll have forgotten this rule in five minutes.  Of all the club rules Haruhi has introduced, the only one she insists on enforcing is the rule stating that Asahina must spill one in three cups of tea.

 

“It’s a new rule I just made up now.  It’s about time you started treating me with the proper respect, Kyon!”

 

In that case, _Haruhi_, how about you start treating me with the proper respect and calling me by my name?

 

“Your name is Kyon.  That’s another rule,” she sniffed.  “And it’s _chief_.  _Brigade chief_, in fact.  Perhaps I should even promote myself to Queen.  That’s it, forget ‘chief’, from now on you can all call me ‘Haruhi-sama’!”  And then she looked up, presumably into the face of her newfound imaginary friend, with an expression I had never seen on Haruhi’s face before.  It was one of softness, fondness – come to think of it, the closest thing I’d seen to Haruhi acting friendly towards someone was when she had me in a headlock or was molesting Asahina.  This was different.

 

It was sort of cute.

 

“Except you, Ryuk,” she said, to absolutely nobody.  “You can call me whatever you want.”

 

What am I saying?  This is no time to be thinking about ‘cute’.  Why the hell is Haruhi making such a loving face at NOBODY?  Surely someone else was going to say something about this insanity?

 

“Haruhi, where did you meet this god of death?”  Clearly I couldn’t convince her that she was in fact talking to nobody, but since she refused to believe me I wondered whether it would be best just to play along.  Much like we are told not to wake a sleepwalker because it is ‘dangerous’, even though nobody really knows what the danger is, I felt that trying to convince Haruhi that she was seeing things would not be a very good idea.

 

“Well, he appeared after I picked up this book.”  She threw a slim black notebook down on the table.  “He said it was his, but since I found it, it’s mine now.  He’d written all in English, though, isn’t that weird?”

 

I picked it up and studied the cover, with its weird silver Roman letters.  I should blame Haruhi for taking up so much of my energy that I can’t concentrate in English classes and so do not know what the letters “DEATH NOTE” mean.  But when I tried to open the book to read what was written inside, Haruhi suddenly jumped at me and slammed it shut.

 

“No!  I mean, you can’t look!  Please don’t, it’s private!  Or, I mean, what I should say is, I’ve written in… er, I’ve used it to write down my… well, it was your idea that I should write down what I think…”

 

I’ve never seen Haruhi this flustered before.  She sounds almost like Asahina-san.

 

“Ah, of course, those are my secret plans and log as your chief!  They’re strictly confidential for an idiot like you!”

 

Under normal circumstances, hearing words like that from Haruhi would be interesting enough in itself.  However, I stopped listening to her stumbling monologue almost straight away, so if anything she said was important, perhaps somebody could inform me?

 

There was no way I could have paid attention to Haruhi’s mumblings, because behind her had suddenly appeared a monster.  It was like a skeleton with black leather for skin, a good metre taller than any human I had ever met.  Its fingers were elongated into long, sharp claws and they dangled in front of its knees as it hunched over, presumably from the weight of the large, batlike wings on its back, or perhaps from constantly having to crouch to get through doorways.  The strangest of all was its face, with perfectly circular and unnaturally large eyes, and a smile that literally went from ear to ear, cracking the face open into an utterly creepy leer.  This was without a doubt the ugliest creature I had ever met.

 

But there’s no excuse for rudeness.

 

“So, you must be Ryuk, the god of death.”

 

“Yes,” said the monster, “But you don’t seem scared or surprised to see me. Doesn’t my appearance shock you?”

 

I looked over him again.  The shock of black hair that stood straight up and the stitches that seemed to hold his skin together were extraordinary – he could have walked straight out of a horror movie.  As I watched, he folded up his enormous wings and tucked them out of sight under the long black feathers that sprouted from his shoulders.

 

“Not really.”

 

A normal person, I am sure, would by now be screaming in terror at the sight of such an unnatural and horrifying creature appearing out of nowhere.  I must admit that when I first saw Ryuk I was very surprised, but after seeing my class rep use her data manipulation powers to mutate the classroom so that she could murder me, or being transported to a fake dimension to fight a giant bug created by the logo Haruhi drew, or simply the fact that all the people I spend my free time with are supernatural beings, this doesn’t surprise me so much.  Damn you, Haruhi, you’ve really corrupted me!  I used to act like a sane person!

 

The only difference that Ryuk’s appearance makes to me is that now I know Haruhi isn’t completely delusional.  Still insane in her usual way, but not hallucinating.  A god of death in the club room or a delusional Haruhi?  I don’t know which prospect is better.

 

Then again, Haruhi was talking to Ryuk before he appeared.  Does that mean she is crazy?  At least a bit?

 

“Only humans who have touched the Death Note can see me,” Ryuk explained, and I noticed that Asahina and Koizumi were now looking at _me_ as though I were the crazy one.

 

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

 

“You didn’t address me as _chief_!  And how was I supposed to know?  He didn’t appear to me until a few days after I found the book.”

 

“She doesn’t seem to listen to me,” Ryuk added.  “She appears to be too excited to pay attention.”

 

Haruhi ignored him.  Aha, so even her precious new favourite Ryuk-chan gets the cold shoulder when he complains!  Wait, why am I pleased by this?  It could be fortunate that Haruhi has Ryuk to latch onto now.

 

Koizumi seemed to have finally regained his composure and restored a pleasant smile to his face.  “Excuse me,” he said, “But as Kyon seems to have some idea what’s going on, perhaps he could enlighten us?”

 

“Haruhi, you should –”

 

“Haruhi-_sama_.”

 

“… pass the Death Note around.”

 

“I can’t!” she said, defiantly, hugging the notebook to her chest.  “It’s top secret!”

 

“Yes, I know that, but nobody else will see Ryuk unless they touch the notebook.”

 

Her face softened slightly, but she still looked stubbornly reluctant to let anyone else hold the book.  Haruhi said at the beginning that the purpose of this club was to find mysterious beings and have fun with them, but now that she’s found one, she’s leaving the rest of us out.  Was that really the purpose of the SOS Brigade, or were we just here to entertain her until she found what she really wanted?

 

She walked over to Ryuk, her face less stubborn now and more concerned.  Clutching the book even more tightly to her chest, I heard her murmur to him, “I thought you gave this book to me?”

 

Is it that she doesn’t want to share the god of death who ‘chose’ her with anybody else?

 

“The book is yours,” Ryuk said to her.  “Other humans who touch the Death Note will be able to see and hear the god of death who is its original owner, or you can lend it to another person, but you will remain the owner of the Death Note unless you choose to return it.  And so you are the only human who is possessed by me.”

 

Possessed by a god of death?  Doesn’t that bother you, Haruhi?  Any normal person would be terrified to find such a being ‘possessing’ them.

 

Haruhi smiled up at Ryuk and loosened her arms.  “Of course,” she murmured again.  “Only me.”

 

“Only you.”

 

Now this is just annoying.  Haruhi, if you want to have a romantic moment with your creepy god of death, take it somewhere else!  Some things are too weird even for this room.

 

“Okay, I’ve decided!”  Haruhi announced, smiling cheerfully a smile that should strike terror into the hearts of everyone present.  “You’re all going to meet Ryuk-san now!  Take this book!”

 

She thrust it at Koizumi first; he looked at it curiously and then automatically tried to open it.

 

“No!”  Haruhi said instantly.  “Don’t look inside!  Just touch it!”

 

“Whatever Suzumiya-san says,” he replied, cheerfully, and then turned to Ryuk.  “I’m glad I can finally meet you, Ryuk-san!”

 

At least act a little surprised that a huge, ugly monster has just appeared in front of you, Koizumi.  Even though this person claims that he is a normal human being when he is not in a Sealed Reality, it is impossible to believe that this is the way a normal human being would behave.  Nothing about this person is normal.

 

I suddenly felt fingers digging into my arms and realised that Asahina-san had dropped the Death Note as soon as she touched it and was staring at Ryuk in absolute terror.  Haruhi snatched the notebook up from the table and turned her back on us.

 

“E… Eh?  H-how is… is this person… god…”  Asahina lapsed into silence and hid her face against my shoulder.  I hardly dared believe my luck; with Haruhi’s attention still elsewhere, I put my arm around the angel clinging to my shirt.  It would be far easier to believe that Asahina-san is what a god should look like than the crazy girl waving around a notebook or the ugly monster in the corner of the room.  Ryuk, even if your presence becomes troublesome, I must thank you later for giving me this rare opportunity!

 

But even as my senses were overwhelmed by the heavenly feeling of holding onto Asahina, I could not help but notice Haruhi hovering nervously over Nagato, who was still holding the book.  She gave a brief look at Ryuk but apparently an alien is not interested in gods of death.  But of course, she is interested in the book.  It’s as though she has some kind of spiritual affinity to books.  Her eyes were narrowed, and I could just see her hands gripping the book a little slighter than was necessary.

 

Is she annoyed because Haruhi won’t let her read the book?  That is an amusing thought.  Perhaps Haruhi has finally found something that can make Nagato angry.

 

“That’s enough!”  Haruhi snatched the book back from her.  “It’s mine!”

 

Asahina finally realised what she was doing and jumped away from me a little too slowly as Haruhi turned her glare on us.  Although she did overturn a cup of tea as Haruhi is always telling her to.  Shouldn’t you congratulate her on that, Haruhi?

 

“There are more important things than tea right now!”  Haruhi marched back to the front of the room, next to Ryuk, and brandished the note in the air again as though it were a flag or something equally pointless and showy.  “Everyone, now that you can all see him, meet the newest member of the SOS Brigade, Ryuk the god of death!”

 

“Pleased to meet you,” Ryuk said, with the closest thing to a bow he could manage for a very tall monster in a small room.

 

“This is Itsuki, my second in command,” Haruhi said, pointing, “And next to him is Kyon, and our mascot character, Mikuru-chan, who is mopping up the tea, and that’s Yuki in the corner, but don’t worry if she doesn’t talk to you, she doesn’t talk to anyone else, either.”

 

Ryuk’s eyes were fixed on me, though.  Stop staring like that, it’s creepy!

 

“Your name isn’t Kyon,” he said.

 

What?  How did you know that, you creepy bat thing?

 

“Hmm, should I reveal shinigami secrets to a human?” he wondered aloud, touching the end of a finger to his chin.  “Perhaps if you knew about those things, you wouldn’t like me any more.”

 

What makes Ryuk think I like him now?  While it’s hard to read Ryuk’s expressions, somehow I don’t think he really cares whether we like him or not.

 

Haruhi, as always, is oblivious to the finer points of emotion.  “Ryuk!  As the owner of the Death Note and leader of the SOS Brigade, I command you to tell me everything!”

 

“I can see people’s names by looking at their faces,” Ryuk said, with a shrug, “And I can also see the date that you are destined to die.”

 

Wow, that’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.  But I guess it’s what you have to expect from a god of death.

 

“Kyon is my nickname.  Everybody calls me that, though I wish they wouldn’t.”

 

“May I address you as Kyon, or should I use…”

 

“Kyon is Kyon!”  Haruhi declared.  “I told you before, that’s a rule!  And if you’re going to be a part of the SOS Brigade then you have to follow my rules!”

 

“I thought you didn’t like rules,” said Ryuk.  Haruhi just ignored him.  Don’t worry, Ryuk, you’ll get used to it.  The only rules Haruhi obeys are the ones she makes herself.

 

“Shut up, Kyon.  You should show more respect to our new member!”

 

Ah, that’s right, there are more important things to worry about.  Haruhi, this person, can’t be a member of the SOS Brigade.

 

“Why not?” she glared at me.

 

“Well, he’s not a student at this school.”

 

“Moron.  The whole purpose of the SOS Brigade is to find mysterious beings like aliens, time travellers and espers and have fun with them!  And that includes gods of death!”

 

Are you just going to accept that, Ryuk?  Surely the reason you came to us was not just to join this pointless club?

 

“Haruhi is the owner of the Death Note.  I must follow her as long as she has it,” Ryuk replied.  It seemed that it wasn’t possible for Ryuk to wear any expression other than a creepy grin, but I didn’t like the way he looked at Haruhi.  If it weren’t for his face being stuck that way, I don’t think he would be smiling about that.

 

“That’s settled, then!”  Haruhi announced.

 

“Nothing is settled!  What is Ryuk going to _do_ all day?  What are we going to do with him?  We can’t just…”

 

Haruhi ignored me, of course.  She had already turned her back on me and was looking instead to the plastic bag she had brought in with her.  I should have noticed it earlier.  Koizumi, too, knew what was coming, and so stood up and looked back at me, waiting for me to follow.  Asahina-san’s eyes widened; she stood up, having finished cleaning up the spilled tea, and took a few steps backward, even though she knew there was no escape for her.  Nagato, of course, showed no reaction at all.  Only Ryuk was mystified when Haruhi pulled a wad of shimmering black cloth out of the bag and began advancing towards Asahina-san.

 

“And to celebrate this most momentous occasion in this club’s history, a new costume!”

 

I knew now to get well out of the room as soon as Haruhi and Asahina started this routine – if we were still in the room when Haruhi got her hands on Asahina, somehow I was the one who always got kicked out of the door while Koizumi was allowed to go peacefully.  At any rate, we both escaped today without any damage and stood in the corridor outside, Koizumi with an empty teacup still in his hand.

 

**   
**

“So,” I said, conversationally, “A god of death, huh?”

 

Koizumi surprised me then; he grabbed my shoulder and looked into my eyes with a more serious look than I had ever seen on him before.  Koizumi, your face is to close.  I’m starting to feel nervous.

 

But before either of us could do anything else, there was a scream from inside and suddenly Ryuk was thrown through the door as well.  Not through the doorway, but through the closed door itself.  Seeing a monster come flying straight through a solid wall could be surprising, but then, compared to everything else that had happened so far today, this was nothing so strange.  I’m sure Ryuk would have been too big to fit through the doorway anyway!

 

The ugly pile of leather and bones stopped himself midair and hovered just above the floor.  He blinked at us for a few moments; if it weren’t for the huge grin on his face which was apparently permanent, I would have thought he looked confused.  Do you always smile, Ryuk?  In his own way, this creature may be as emotionless as Nagato.

 

“What an odd human,” he said at last.

 

“Ah, yes, Suzumiya-san is quite an unusual subject,” Koizumi said, cheerfully.

 

‘Unusual’ is not the way I would describe Suzumiya, nor her fetish for dressing Mikuru up in weird costumes.  ‘Insane’ is a much better word for her.  You’d better get used to her craziness, Ryuk, since it looks like you’re her new best friend!

 

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about Haruhi,” Ryuk replied.  “I meant the other one, Mikuru.  She suddenly got so upset about me being in the same room as her.”

 

Don’t say her name with such familiarity!

 

“She’s just shy.  She gets embarrassed when Suzumiya-san removes her clothes,” Koizumi assured him.

 

“Why?  She looks fine without them.”

 

“Hey, don’t talk about Mikuru like that!”  Especially not with that creepy look on your face.  You look like the most dangerous pervert I’ve ever seen.

 

“Why not?  It’s true.  She isn’t ugly underneath, so why should she be embarrassed?”

 

“You can’t talk about girls like that.  It makes you sound like some kind of predator.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

Was this creature really that clueless?  No matter how creepy he looks, I guess he really didn’t mean anything perverted by those comments about Asahina-san.  Still, my blood boils when I think that he saw her naked, even for a moment!  And even when he isn’t saying such creepy things, Ryuk just looks like a shady person.  Hmm, but then, what should I expect a god of death to look like?

 

“Ryuk, we must speak.”  Apparently Koizumi is not concerned by Ryuk’s disturbing words.  “If you are a part of the SOS Brigade, then you must be one of us, another representative who is monitoring the human entity known as Haruhi Suzumiya.  But why have you shown your true identity to her?  What is your purpose?”

 

“Of what concern is my purpose to you?”

 

Koizumi put on his most cheerful, amiable smile.  It gave me shivers.  “Because if your aims are in direct opposition to mine, I will have no choice to consider you my enemy.”

 

“No human is my enemy.  I am not interested in fighting with humans, or in being involved with human affairs.”

 

“I am no ordinary human.  I am a member of the ‘Organisation’, and my mission here is to keep Suzumiya under control and unaware of her powers.  If you get in the way, you will have to be eliminated.”

 

Ryuk smiled, or rather, his smile widened and his eyes took on an expression closer to that of amusement.  But who knows what this strange being is really thinking?  If a chimpanzee believes that a smile is used to communicate a threat, who knows what such body language means to a god of death?

 

“You will eliminate me?”  He threw his head back and laughed heartily.  “And how do you plan to kill a god of death?  I could kill you in less than a minute.  There’s no way you could get rid of me.”

 

I wouldn’t speak too soon, Ryuk.  You haven’t encountered Nagato yet.

 

“I see,” Koizumi, continued, unshaken.  “Perhaps I have gone about this the wrong way.  I should have been more polite.”  Koizumi, you’re already so polite that it’s disturbing.  “What motivated your decision to show yourself to Suzumiya-san as a god of death?”

 

“I had to.  That is one of the rules that a god of death must follow.  Also, I wished to see how the human who found the Death Note was using it.  I thought it might be interesting, but when I went to see her it turned out that Haruhi Suzumiya was only using the Death Note for frivolous purposes.”

 

Is that so?  What purposes might those be?

 

“I won’t tell you.  Haruhi doesn’t want me to.  Besides, it’s embarrassing.”

 

Embarrassing, huh?

 

“Yes!  The Death Note a special and powerful object – it’s embarrassing to have a teenage girl use it in such a way.  When I realised what she was doing with it, I tried to make her return it to me so that I could rip out those pages and pass it on to someone else, but she became so excited at meeting me that she refused to return the note.  Now I have to hang around with her and just wait for her to get bored with it.  It’s quite troublesome.”

 

Koizumi faltered and at last his cheerful smile dissipated into a serious expression.  “Do you expect me to believe that you are not interested in Suzumiya-san’s power?  If you’ve made yourself visible to her, then you must intend to provoke her into using them for some reason or another.”

 

“What powers?”  Ryuk asked, confused.  “The power of the Death Note is a power I left for her to discover.”

 

Koizumi was just as confused.  “Then you don’t know what Suzumiya-san is?  But Suzumiya-san has godlike powers herself!  If you are a god of death, how could you not recognise this?  And what do you want from her except her power?”

 

“I did not choose Haruhi myself,” Ryuk said.  I still don’t think he completely understands.  Koizumi, you are still far too bad at explaining things, even when they’re simple.  “It was a matter of chance.  I left the Death Note in the human world for anyone to find, and she was the one who found it.  That’s all.”

 

“You said that the Death Note was a powerful object.”  Ryuk turned to me as though he had forgotten about me, which I suppose he had.  It will take a long time to get used to that face staring at me.  “Why would you throw away something powerful?”

 

“The Death Note is the tool of a shinigami, it’s true,” Ryuk agreed, “But I had a spare, so it doesn’t matter that much.”

 

Why not just keep both of them, then?

 

“Because that’s boring.”

 

That’s exactly the sort of thing Haruhi would say.

 

“But it’s true.  Life as a god of death has become boring.  It’s aimless.  None of the others seem to see any point to anything.  There didn’t seem any reason to continue this kind of life any longer.”

 

He sounds _just_ like Haruhi when she was depressed… right before she and I became trapped in that sealed dimension that almost became a new world.

 

Although, the truth is, I have sometimes felt a little like that myself.

 

“So I left the spare notebook in the human world, with instructions – although Haruhi doesn’t appear to have read them.  I thought that that, at least, would have effects that were interesting.”

 

It’s really quite ironic that he seems to be disappointed.

 

“Ryuk-san has mentioned the Death Note many times, and we can tell that its powerful.”  Koizumi’s cheerful face was back.  There’s something unnatural about such abrupt changes in mood.  Could this situation be getting too stressful for him?  “But what exactly is the Death Note’s power?”

 

“A god of death is under no obligation to tell humans how the Death Note is used, not even the human who owns the Death Note.”

 

“Is it forbidden to tell us about the Death Note?”

 

“Not at all.”

 

“Then why don’t you?”

 

“Why not?  I suppose if Haruhi won’t listen, things might become more interesting if I told you.  If that occurs, perhaps being here won’t be so boring after all.”  Ryuk stood up and spread his wings wider.  Are we going to have stupid theatrics from this patchwork god every time we need to talk?  “The first and most important rule of the Death Note is that the human whose name is written in this book will die.”

 

What the hell?  What kind of a crazy weapon is that?  And you gave it to _Haruhi_?  I think I’ve finally found someone more insane than Haruhi herself.  But alas, I had no chance to hear Ryuk try to explain why he would do something so monumentally stupid as to give a lethal weapon to a girl as crazy as Haruhi, because at that exact moment Haruhi flung the door to the club room open.  This destroyed Ryuk’s theatrical effect somewhat as he was still hovering in front of the door and it swung right through the left side of his body.  If things weren’t so scary right now, I probably would have laughed.

 

“Come in everyone, we’re all done!” Haruhi declared, and grabbed Ryuk by the arm to pull him back into the room.  Why is it that he can pass through doors, but Haruhi is still able to touch him?  And come to think of it, wasn’t the apple that I saw being eaten by nobody in the sports field really eaten by Ryuk as well?  I don’t care if you’re a god of death, whether you have a corporeal body or are merely a spirit, you should at least be consistent.  Make up your mind, Ryuk.

 

As soon as I entered the SOS Brigade club room, though, the unsurpassable and entirely natural beauty of Asahina-san drove all thoughts of Ryuk’s existential inconsistency from my mind.  She was so sweet, so vulnerable and so timid… which made the gothic cosplay that Haruhi had chosen for her, all shining black and mesh stockings and chains, look a little inappropriate.  And yet all the same Asahina-san looked incredibly cute, especially with the two small pigtails Haruhi had tied at the sides of her head.  Perhaps this isn’t such a bad costume after all.

 

“Ah, Suzumiya-san’s taste in costumes is as impeccable as always,” said Koizumi.  What does he think he’s achieving by trying to flatter Suzumiya-san all the time?  I suppose he thinks that if he compliments her then she will be happier and stop creating any more sealed dimensions, but in my opinion making Haruhi happy just seems to make her more imaginative, which means she’s more dangerous.  I can’t be bothered deciding which is wiser, though.  What do you think?  Please tell Koizumi when you figure it out, I’m sure he won’t get that right on his own.

 

Anyway, Haruhi, as cute as it is, I don’t see what Asahina-san’s gothic costume has to do with Ryuk.

 

“Because a god of death is something creepy and dark, so Mikuru-chan needs something creepy and dark to go with him!  See, they match perfectly!”  She shoved the cringing girl next to Ryuk.

 

I know Ryuk is creepy and dark, but Asahina-san isn’t any of those things.  Although she _does_ have weird powers, but travelling through time is nothing like vampire magic, and I’m not about to tell Haruhi what Asahina can do.  Still, they don’t match at all!

 

“Sure they do!  Look at their jewellery!”

 

It took me a moment to realise it, but the earrings that Asahina-san was wearing, with small silver hearts dangling from chains, were just like the earring that Ryuk wore in his left ear.  Yet the same jewellery looked completely different on those two people; on Asahina-san, the heart was a cute accessory, but on Ryuk it just looked sinister.  Still, I must say that Haruhi does pay impressive attention to detail.

 

“Of course I do!” she beamed, letting Asahina run back to the opposite corner of the room, “That’s why I’m the chief!”

 

In an absent-minded sort of way, she reached up and fingered Ryuk’s earring while she was talking.  If I were a god of death and an impertinent high school girl was playing with my wings like that, I think I would find it totally undignified.  Ryuk didn’t say anything, but from the way he gently pulled his head away from her hands I think he may feel the same way.  A moment later he moved away from her and went to the corner which housed the kettle and Asahina’s tea set.  Asahina herself stumbled backwards away from him, but Ryuk didn’t notice her.  This must be a truly heartless ‘god’, to invade Asahina-san’s cupboard and ignore her distress at such an action!

 

“R-Ryuk-san, er… eh… that is… w-what is it that you’re looking for?”

 

He turned to face her with his disturbingly blank face and she drew the edge of the cape up to cover her mouth again.

 

“Apples.”

 

“Oh.  I… I’m sorry, Ryuk-san.  Th-the only thing I have here is tea…  Although I suppose I might be able to find some fruit tea if you like fruit…”

 

You should try the tea, Ryuk.  I can highly recommend it!

 

“No, I just want apples.”  Ryuk turned his back on Asahina-san and the kettle and looked towards the small wastepaper bin by the door.  “It’s worth having to stay on Earth and live among humans for a juicy apple…”

 

If there are no apples where you come from, how do you know what they taste like?

 

“The apples in my world are terrible.  They taste like dust compared to the apples here.  And as to how I know…”  He turned towards me, and now his smile looked more like a leer.  “A god of death exists to kill _humans_, not anyone else.  Do you think this is the first time I’ve come to Earth?”

 

That was just too creepy!  I can’t believe Haruhi wants this creature to be a member of the club.  She just gets weirder and weirder.

 

“Apples aren’t food to a god of death, they’re something I _have_ to have.  It has a similar effect to a substance like heroin on humans.”

 

“Hey, don’t talk about things like that!  Don’t you know those things are illegal?”

 

Ryuk shrugged and asked me why he should care about human laws, which is actually very true.  It’s not as though anybody can overhear him, and the thought of police trying to track down a criminal they can’t see or hear and don’t believe in is actually an amusing one.  But really he’s only interested in apples, which are completely legal.  I wonder if the reason the shinigami eat them is because apples were the original fruit forbidden to humans?  Perhaps apples really are only meant to be eaten by God!  Or perhaps Ryuk simply likes apples because the seeds contain poison.  Either way, it’s the perfect food for a god of death.

 

Haruhi then declared the meeting over as she had to go and get more apples for Ryuk to eat, and commanded that from now on it was my duty to keep the club room well stocked with apples at all times.  It would be my job, wouldn’t it?  I suppose I’ll have to pay for it, too.  Why can’t Haruhi pay for her own pet’s food?  Hey, if both of you are gods, can’t you just make money appear to pay for these things?

 

And then as usual, without saying ‘thank you’ or ‘see you tomorrow’, she flounced out the door, calling for ‘Ryuk-san’ to follow her.  Ryuk drifted towards the door, but before following Haruhi into the corridor, he waved goodbye to me.

 

Well, at least one of the two gods in this club is polite!

 

Nobody else in the club room was talking, but nobody seemed to be leaving, either.  The only sound that reached my ears was Mikuru exhaling dramatically as the source of her fear vanished.  Asahina-san is a normal human like myself, after all, and it’s only natural to be scared of a thing like that.  Hey, Haruhi, since you’re not here, does that mean I can comfort the cute Asahina-san without you destroying the world?

 

Surprisingly, it was Nagato-san who broke the silence.  “This was unexpected.  I had not noticed any considerable fluctuations in data.”

 

Asahina-san was shivering in my arms.  “Is it surprising?  He is a god, after all.”

 

Nagato didn’t respond to me, which wasn’t surprising at all.

 

“We in the ‘Organisation’ had never considered the possibility that there may be divine beings – gods – other than Suzumiya Haruhi herself,” Koizumi said, wearing his rare serious face again.  “I believe that if this creature were truly a ‘god’ then the ‘Organisation’ should have some knowledge of him.”

 

“I agree,” said Nagato.  “There is no existing data on beings called gods of death or shinigami.”

 

“Then if the creature named Ryuk is not a god of death, then who is he really?  A ghost?  A demon or spirit of some kind?  And why would he call himself a god?”

 

“You’re wrong!”

 

I was surprised by Asahina-san’s sudden shout – I don’t believe I have ever seen this girl raise her voice except in fear or alarm, and yet here she was looking serious.  Or perhaps I should say that she looks assertive – she jumped out of my arms and onto her feet, and she’s even banging her hand down on the table!  Is this really the same Mikuru-chan who was shivering a few moments ago, about to cry?

 

Come to think of it, she looks a lot like the other, ‘adult’ Mikuru from the future right now.  Is it time now for Asahina-san to start growing up?

 

“You’re wrong,” she said again, a little more softly.  “Everything Ryuk-san has said has been the truth.  Gods of death do exist, and I believe that Ryuk really is one of them.”

 

“What makes you so sure?”  Koizumi was being as friendly as he could while still looking very serious, but it sounded to me like he was suspicious.

 

“The notebook he gave to Suzumiya-san is proof,” Asahina-san said, very firmly.  “I have never seen a god of death until today, but I know of their existence and that they are connected to those notebooks.  Both the shinigami and the notebook are incredibly powerful.  Very soon Kira is going to…”

 

Suddenly, her eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth.  “Oh no, that was classified information.  I shouldn’t have told you any of that!  Oh no, what am I going to do now?  Er, um, please, everyone, forget what I just said right now!”

 

And suddenly she’s young Asahina-san again.  Oh well.  At least it was a start.

 

Koizumi was still watching her warily.  Hey, Koizumi, do you really think such an innocent angel would deceive you?

 

“Asahina-san, if you withhold information from us which could help us in preventing trouble, it will be your fault that any damage is done.”

 

“I can’t help it,” she mumbled.  “Secrets are secrets.  I’m the lowest-level agent, it was just luck that Suzumiya-san chose me for the brigade, and I don’t have the authority to disclose classified information…”

 

Yeah, give her a break, Koizumi!

 

He sighed.  “All right then.  But we have to take this seriously.  I believe that Ryuk’s interests and intentions may directly oppose our own aims.  This is something that we have to take seriously.”

 

“Er… what do you mean by ‘our’ aims?” Asahina-san asked, cautiously.  That’s odd, I would have thought it was a fairly obvious question – to keep Haruhi from doing crazy things that go against the rules of physics, or destroy the world, or worse, create another new world where she and I are the only living people.

 

“Ah… well… I’m not sure…” Asahina looked down and fumbled with the hem of her cape.

 

“How can Asahina-san be unsure if she already knows about Ryuk?” Koizumi demanded.  “From what he said to Kyon and myself, Ryuk seems interested only in things which are interesting, which may mean that he is here to provoke Haruhi, contrary to our aims of keeping her under control.  And judging by what Asahina-san said before…”

 

“Please forget about that!”

 

“… gods of death are known for interfering with human affairs.  So surely you must agree with me that Ryuk could be our enemy!”

 

“Ah… well… it is true that I believe Ryuk-san may be looking for things that interest him,” Mikuru agreed, tentatively, “But even though Ryuk is scary, I do not regard him entirely as an enemy.”

 

“But…”

 

Her voice became stronger.  “Itsuki-san’s aim may be to prevent Suzumiya-san from making strange things happen, but that is not my purpose here.  I was sent to this time plane to observe Suzumiya-san and her effect on the fourth dimension, not to prevent her from doing anything unusual.”  She finally looked up, and the expression in her face was defiant once more.  “Of course, if she were to create a dangerous situation, then I would have to do what I could to save everyone.  But right now I’m not authorised to do anything to get rid of Ryuk, or do anything else that would interfere with his future.”

 

Koizumi looked in shock at this small, timid girl who was now staring at him so defiantly.  The esper, it seems, has often been the one who takes charge when we have to deal with strange occurrences.  I’m sure if there were to be rebellion, he would have expected it to come from me, not the mascot character Mikuru-chan!  He turned to Nagato as though seeking support.  To my surprise, she actually closed her book.

 

“My position is closer to yours than Asahina-san’s is – the Integrated Data Entity believes that if Suzumiya becomes aware of her own powers, then a disaster may occur, and this is undesirable.  However, the presence of Ryuk is unexpected, and at present I have no instructions to take action.  Awaiting further orders.”  With that, she opened the book again, as if to say that the conversation was closed.

 

This may be the first time I have seen Koizumi completely lost.  In fact, this is a very strange situation!  Hey, guys, why are you standing around arguing like this?  If the other members of this club can’t get along and they start arguing with each other instead of dealing with Haruhi, things could get dangerous.  Hmmm, perhaps I should say something.

 

“It seems I’m not needed here, so I’m going home.  See you later.”

 

“You can’t go!”  Koizumi grabbed my arm as I tried to reach the door.  “Don’t you realise how important this is?”

 

Hmm, maybe you’re right.  But it doesn’t seem like a crisis is going to occur overnight, and since Ryuk seems to like us I think he’ll be around for a while.  Besides, this atmosphere is becoming rather tense, and that isn’t helpful at all!  If you want to argue, do it tomorrow, once you’ve all had some sleep and thought about it a bit more.

 

Koizumi’s grip loosened on my arm, and I walked straight out the door.  I still felt quite uneasy, despite what I had just said.  It’s not often that I realise just how strange and different all my classmates are.  It’s a little frightening sometimes.

 

But I believed that I would be able to get to the bottom of things on my own sooner or later.

**   
**

 

My home, under normal circumstances, is a pleasantly normal haven in the abnormal world I usually inhabit.  Though there have been several occasions on which the freakish results of Haruhi’s unnatural desires have disturbed the peace: my younger sister being recruited into SOS Brigade activities like the baseball tournament, for example, or my having to adopt a talking cat.  Shamisen still lives here, and one could perceive him as a reminder of weirdness invading my home, but he no longer talks and really, he’s good companion, even if he does nothing but sleep.

 

I was also right here, safe in my bed, when Haruhi swept me in my dreams into a Sealed Reality with her, into her own strange, empty vision of a new world.

 

But let’s not think about that.

 

In other words, my home is almost always a place where I am safe from the strange and distressing occurrences that had plagued me ever since I first met the anomaly in human form with the name of Suzumiya Haruhi.  Taking this into consideration, naturally you will understand that I was unpleasantly surprised when Ryuk floated through my bedroom wall that night.

 

Although Ryuk never demonstrated any facial expression except for a wide grin, I believe it looked more evil than usual when I picked myself up off the floor after having yelled out loud, jumped up out of bed and fallen on the floor.  Of course, as well as making Ryuk look at me with that laughing expression on his face, such a reaction on my part only led to my mother and sister running into my room to check on me.  Dammit, Ryuk, that’s just too embarrassing.  At least they couldn’t see Ryuk – that would have been too difficult to explain.  I suppose at last there is a supernatural being in my life which is somewhat convenient.

 

As it turned out, it was fortunate for me that Shamisen’s preferred sleeping place was my bed, as I could explain that something had startled the cat and he had woken me from my sleep by attacking me with his claws in fear.  By the time they had been convinced that there was no danger to me and gone back to bed themselves, I was no longer the least bit concerned that an ugly god of death had materialised in my bedroom while I was trying to get to sleep.

 

The truth was that Ryuk’s appearance in my room was not truly surprising.  Of course, I had not expected him to appear at exactly this time and place, but all the other members of the SOS Brigade who possessed otherworldly powers, whom Haruhi had subconsciously summoned to her side, had soon afterwards made sure to meet with me.  Nagato, Asahina and then Koizumi all sought meetings with me in order to explain who they were, why they came here and why Haruhi was significant to them.  And for some reason they all insisted on my importance as well, even though they all admitted that I was nothing more than a normal human being.

 

Taking this into consideration, I had expected Ryuk to approach me for a private discussion some time in the next few days.  I had simply not expected it so quickly – nor in my house, and especially not while I was wearing pyjamas.  But aside from the unusual circumstances, this meeting was not really a surprise at all, and so it was only to be expected that I quickly regained my composure.

 

“You seemed surprised to see me,” Ryuk said.

 

A little.  But I should have expected it.

 

“Really?  Why is that?”

 

“All the others sought me out very quickly in order to discuss their true identities with me.”  I shrugged.  “So, I suppose you’ve come to tell me that you first became aware of the entity known as Suzumiya Haruhi three years ago, is that correct?”

 

“No.”

 

Ah, I see.

 

No, I don’t understand at all!  Surely you must have known of the importance of Suzumiya Haruhi some time ago?

 

“Not at all.  The first time I encountered this girl was only yesterday.”

 

In that case, you must be about to tell me that you came into existence three years ago, or that you were once an ordinary human being who became a shinigami three years ago, is that true?

 

“No.  Why would I say that?  I have existed for millennia.  The gods of death have probably existed since the beginning of time.”

 

Well, Koizumi, your prediction that the world as we know it came into existence three years ago cannot be true!  But if Ryuk was unaware of the existence of Suzumiya Haruhi until yesterday, and he believes that he has existed since long before the time three years ago when Haruhi first began to exercise her powers, then he is different from all the other strange people who have been drawn into the SOS Brigade.

 

“This is most unusual.”

 

“What did you expect of me?  I’m a god of death – that’s a concept so far from human experience that you should be incapable of comprehending my existence.  And yet _you_ humans, Haruhi and her friends, show little surprise at all.”

 

Well, that would be because the SOS Brigade is made up of an alien, a time traveller, an esper and our leader, who has power beyond anything else imaginable and yet has no knowledge of this.

 

“Is that so?”  His eyes were big enough already, but they’re even bigger when he’s surprised.  “Very interesting.”

 

Ryuk, I think you had better tell me more about yourself.

 

His smile grew wider again.  Damn, that’s creepy.  “You’re curious, aren’t you?  You and I are very similar, I believe.”

 

Don’t compare us!  I don’t want to be likened to a god of death which such an ugly face.

 

“Very well then.”  Ryuk settled down for a long talk, or at least I think that’s what he was doing – he folded his wings tightly to his back and settled to the ground instead of hovering mid-air.  I wondered, very briefly, whether I should offer him a cup of tea or some other form of hospitality.

 

“As I said before, the Death Note is a shinigami’s primary tool, and the first rule of the Death Note is that the human whose name is written in this note will die.”

 

The gods of death are divine beings who watch over humanity.  Every human has a predetermined life span, and when a god of death looks upon the face of a human, he or she can see that human’s name and their predetermined time of death.  So if every human’s time of death is predetermined from birth, why do the gods of death carry notebooks with which to hasten the deaths of humans?

 

“A god of death can extend his life by putting human names on the note, but humans cannot.”

 

The gods of death are neither mortal nor immortal; the lifespan of a god of death is equal to the amount of life he has taken away from human beings.  In other words, when Ryuk writes the name of a human in his notebook, the amount of time between the person’s predestined time of death and the time at which Ryuk kills him is added to Ryuk’s lifespan.  Gods of death can make judgements on humans and interfere with events and history by using the Death Note to kill humans, but do it primarily in order to extend their own lives.

 

“This note shall become the property of the human world once it touches the ground of arrives in the human world.”

 

The gods of death belong to a separate world to the human world; this is why Ryuk is able to pass through objects that appear as solid to humans, and why humans are normally unable to see him.  The Death Note, when in the possession of a god of death, also belongs to that world.  However, when Ryuk dropped his Death Note in the human world, he was unable to take it back as it had become a part of this world.  Since it is truly a part of this world now, humans can use the note to kill people by writing names in it, too, although some conditions are different for humans than for gods of death.  The only way for Ryuk’s note to become a part of his world again was for a human to take possession of it and willingly return it to him, so he waited for a human to find it.

 

And that human was Haruhi.

 

“The person in possession of the Death Note is possessed by a god of death, its original owner, until they die.”

 

Ryuk is the owner of Haruhi’s Death Note, and so for as long as she is its current owner, Ryuk will be haunting her.  He has no obligation to either help or hinder her aims and may act in any way he chooses, but he will remain watching over Haruhi until she either relinquishes possession of the note or until her death.

 

“You may as well give up now, Ryuk.  I know Haruhi, and there’s no way she’s going to give up that note.”

 

“How annoying.  It’s embarrassing for such an important notebook to contain the silly things that she’s writing in it.  Even though the Death Note will never run out of pages, the more she writes now, the more I’ll have to rip out when I get it back.”

 

Even though I don’t want Haruhi to keep the Death Note, I really can’t believe that Ryuk wants to take it away from her, especially when his motive for leaving it around was ‘boredom’.  It’s too great a coincidence, and my past experience would suggest that no supernatural creature who finds Haruhi does so without a reason.  Who is Suzumiya Haruhi to you?

 

“You keep asking me these questions,” Ryuk said, “You _and_ Koizumi Itsuki.  None are you are at all what I expected from humans.  Haruhi thinks I’m the best thing that ever happened to her.  The rest of you barely seem surprised at my existence, yet you are fixated on Haruhi herself.  Just what is going on?”

 

You really aren’t like the others at all, are you?

 

“What others?  In the SOS Brigade?  Of course not, I’m not human.”

 

That, of course, was too much.  This huge, ugly, rather terrifying god of death was so clueless about the world he had stumbled into – it almost makes him look innocent and naïve.  Thrown in with Nagato, Koizumi, Asahina-san and Haruhi herself, without any idea as to who any of them really were.  I almost feel sorry for him, but the truth is, I was laughing too much to really feel any pity.

 

“Why is that funny?”

 

“Because we’re _not_ humans.  Or at least not normal humans.  Koizumi told you earlier today – he’s an esper and a representative of the ‘Organisation’ of other espers.  Asahina Mikuru is a time-traveller, and a low-ranked representative of the Time Agency.  Nagato…”

 

How could I possibly explain Nagato?  Truthfully, having heard Ryuk discuss the Death Note, and calling himself a god, I believe that Nagato must still be far more powerful than he is; definitely the most powerful person I have yet encountered, except for Haruhi herself.  Her abilities to manipulate space and matter are beyond belief, not to mention her unbelievable skills with the computer.  Nagato… Nagato is simply…

 

“Well, Nagato is an alien.  Sort of.  She’s a… a… data thing.  A representative of the Integrated Data Entity.”

 

“I see.”

 

Ryuk clearly didn’t understand at all.

 

“No, I think I understand somewhat.  She is from a different world?”

 

Not in the same way that you are.  A different planet.

 

“_Very_ interesting.”

 

So are you like the others?  Is there a whole organisation of gods of death who have some grand plan, and have sent you to execute it, or observe?  There’s no need to lie, nothing can shock me any more.

 

“Organisation?  Hardly.”  Ryuk scoffed.  “The gods of death are… they’re… _degenerate_.  All they do is gamble.  That’s it.  They have no aims at all.  They have no _purpose_.  And if there’s _anything_ that the gods of death aren’t, it’s organised!”

 

He had spread his wings in agitation and was leaning towards me as he became more vehement.  Ryuk, calm down!  Even though he didn’t seem all that angry, nothing like Haruhi in full flight, a ranting god of death looming towards one would make anyone uncomfortable.

 

“I’m sorry,” Ryuk immediately backed off and settled back down on the other side of the room.  “But to answer your question, I represent nobody but myself.”

 

“I see.  That makes sense.”  But you haven’t explained everything.  No supernatural being comes to North High for no reason.  No matter what Ryuk tries to tell me, he must have some reason for watching Haruhi.  “And so your objective in interfering in our lives is… what?”

 

“Because I am bored.”

 

That’s it?  Nothing about the potential for evolution, or anomalies in space-time, or saving the world?

 

“Evolution and space-time are meaningless to me.  And what do I care of the fate of the world?  Don’t be fooled into thinking that I _care_ for humans – the individuals or the race.  Some gods of death have been known to care about individual humans, but that is the worst thing that can happen to one of us.”

 

“I don’t understand!”  This guy was becoming very frustrating!  “Why are you here?  Don’t keep avoiding the question.  You can’t have come here for no reason.”

 

“I came here because I was bored.”  Ryuk said this as if it were a very simple thing, but from the way he twisted his head away from me and stared towards the window, I suspected that it was more than that.  “I was bored, that’s all.  When all I can do is gamble and kill humans, what’s the point?  I didn’t do anything important or significant at all.  There isn’t even any meaning to the life of a god of death, really – humans will die eventually whether their names are written in a Death Note or not.”

 

And so you left this Death Note just lying around in a school yard in Japan?

 

“Yes.  The rules of the Death Note are different for humans than for gods of death, and humans are much more interesting!  I wanted to see what a human would do with the Death Note, whether a human could use it for more than just killing people at random and do something even more powerful.”  This guy is seriously concerning.  If he were a human, I’d think he were insane.  “So I left it on Earth and waited to see who would pick it up.”

 

Of course.  Of _course_, it was Haruhi.

 

Come to think of it, Ryuk sounds a lot like Haruhi, especially in the days before the SOS Brigade when she had nothing to do.  Of course, Haruhi’s idea of entertainment was not leaving a lethal weapon around where anyone could pick it up and use it.  I don’t think even she would be that extreme.  Still, it’s funny that Ryuk thinks Haruhi’s embarrassing and he wants to get his Note back when she’s just like him.

 

I could have told him that.  But I really don’t want to encourage this guy to stick around.

 

“So what are you going to do about getting your notebook back?”

 

“I don’t know,” said Ryuk, touching his chin with one long finger in a thoughtful gesture.  “I thought that when I revealed myself to her she would be scared into returning the Death Note.  When that didn’t work, I thought that explaining how the note works would scare her, but she just didn’t listen to me.  It seems that there is no way to convince her to return the Death Note.”

 

And she has to decide to give it back to you?  You can’t just take it, or order her to return it?

 

“No, I’m afraid not.  It must be returned willingly.”

 

Damn.  That’s a pain.  Haruhi definitely won’t give up something like that on her own.

 

“Of course…”  Ryuk had a sly look on his face as he picked up his second Death Note.  “I could always just kill her.”

 

If a normal person such as Taniguchi made a comment like this, I would respond sarcastically to say how much easier my life would be without Haruhi.  When someone like Ryuk says this, however, it is nothing to joke about, and I’m ashamed to say that for some minutes I could formulate no response and simply stared at Ryuk in horror.  This is a plan of action I cannot condone under any circumstances.  I would rather keep Ryuk around and take my chances than have Haruhi dead.

 

No amount of trouble that girl can cause is so bad that she should die.

 

It’s odd that I took Ryuk so seriously, because it appears that he was joking.  After I’d spent a few moments sweating, he broke into raucous laughter and assured me - though his tone was not so reassuring - that he wasn’t going to kill Haruhi.  You jerk, don’t scare me like that.  I’ve had enough shocks today without you playing with my nerves as well.

 

Besides, I don’t even know whether it would be possible to kill Haruhi.

 

“Weren’t you listening before?  The person whose name is written in this note will die.  Once the name is written, the death cannot be avoided.  I could kill Haruhi in less than a minute and nothing would be able to stop me.”

 

Maybe.

 

But you never know with Haruhi.

 

Ryuk shrugged.  “She is a human.  You all die.  The only question is ‘when?’, and I can decide the answer if I want to.”

 

“Ryuk, you can read people’s lifespans, correct?”  He nodded.  “Just out of curiosity, how long will Haruhi live for?”

 

“You know, I never really noticed…”  His eyes widened suddenly as he realised.  “But that’s impossible?”

 

What’s impossible?  Is she immortal?

 

“Why didn’t I notice when I first met her?  I must not have been paying attention!  The numbers are there, but I’ve never seen anything like that… her lifespan may as well be infinite!  No human can live that long!”  He turned to me and asked, in a mildly surprised voice, “Is this why you all treat her as a special person?  Who _is_ she?”

 

It’s funny, really.  Everyone else had an answer to that question, except the one who now lives in her bedroom.

 

“Haruhi… to Nagato, she is the potential for evolution.  To Asahina, she is a temporal distortion, a ‘time-quake’.  To Koizumi, she is God.”

 

“And who is she to you?”

 

Don’t ask me such a personal question!  “She’s a very crazy teenage girl who is probably going to cause my untimely death one day.”

 

“This is strange.  I can’t see how she is special in any way, except that she didn’t react to me the way I expected.  But you all say that Haruhi is a powerful person – Koizumi, you say, calls her ‘God’ – and she still appears to be an ordinary human to me, even if she will live for an unusually long time.”

 

Ordinarily I would be suspicious of a stranger who appeared in the SOS Brigade and believed that Haruhi was an ordinary human.  I would think that they were in some way against us, or hiding something.  And yet for some reason, Ryuk, despite being such a disturbing creature, seemed perfectly innocent to me.  If Nagato or Koizumi – and maybe even Asahina – claimed such ignorance, I would be suspicious of them.  But Ryuk, I think is really being honest.

 

Oh, Ryuk.  Do you really think that it was only by chance that Haruhi was the person who picked up the Death Note?

 

“Of course.”

 

It wasn’t.

 

“How can you be so sure?”

 

Trust me.  “When the others call Haruhi by those things – when they say she is ‘God’ – they refer to the power she has to make things happen the way she wants them to.  And what Haruhi wants is for interesting things to happen.  So when a creature like Ryuk-san comes to Earth, Haruhi will bring you to her, whether you know it or not.  Whether _she_ knows it or not.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because she’s bored.”

 

“And she is not aware of these powers?”

 

“Haruhi believes herself to be an ordinary human being.”  And she hates it.

 

“I see…” Ryuk stared off into the distance again.  “It’s possible, I suppose, that she is a more interesting person than I thought.”

 

That’s not good.  If Ryuk decides that it’s more interesting for him to provoke Haruhi than to get the notebook back from her, I’ll lose my only good chance at solving this mess.

 

“Ryuk, I can help you to get your notebook back.  Or at the least, I can try.  Let’s both do our best to convince Haruhi to return it!”

 

“Mmmm,” said Ryuk, thoughtfully, “Yes, perhaps that’s the best idea.  Despite what you say about Haruhi, she is an ordinary human to me.  And an embarrassing one.  I’d rather place the Death Note in the hands of someone less… exuberant.”

 

What’s that, Ryuk?  Is Haruhi too much for you to handle?

 

“I am a male, you know.  I’m shy when it comes to girls.”

 

Ugh, I don’t want to know that!  At any rate, let’s be friends and work together, Ryuk!  Here, I’ll even shake your lethal-looking hand to seal our alliance!

 

He just stared at my outstretched hand for a moment before he laughed.  “We might have the same aim in this case, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that I care about human beings.  It’s of no concern to me if it creates trouble for you or puts you in danger.  You’re all entertainment to me.  The only reason I’m working with you is because Haruhi is so annoying.”

 

Sigh.  I suppose I should have expected that.  Ryuk is unlike the others in every other way, so perhaps it’s not so strange that he doesn’t want to be a true ally.  At least we can agree to a certain extent.

 

I looked at the clock.  It was after one o’clock in the morning, and I yawned without thinking.  Dammit, I’m too tired to deal with this right now!  I have a feeling that I’m not going to be fortunate enough to have very much rest for as long as Ryuk is around, and I can’t deal with this difficult person right now.  No matter what we agree tonight, Haruhi is certain to do something crazy tomorrow, and I’ll need plenty of sleep to deal with that.

 

“I think it’s time I returned to Haruhi’s side.”

 

I have no objections to that.  The sooner I can get back to sleep, the better.  But there’s something that’s missing from this conversation so far.

 

“One last thing, Ryuk,” I said, before he could leave.  “You said that you are to ‘possess’ Haruhi, or to haunt her, until she gives up the note, or until she dies.”

 

“That’s right,” he replied, with the particular form of grin I had come to think of as the ‘creepy leer’ – not that all his smiles weren’t creepy.  “Why?  Does it bother you?  Are you scared for your friend?  Because I’m not going to hurt her.”

 

Of course you won’t, that’s probably not even possible.  It’s just that if you’re supposed to be haunting _her_, then why did you come to see _me_ tonight?

 

“Because you are the person who is most important to Haruhi.”

 

After the expected meeting had progressed in such an entirely unexpected fashion, Ryuk has finally responded to a question in a way that any of the other SOS Brigade members would.  Perhaps the one constant, the most unchangeable thing about the events and the beings that I meet is that I will always be regarded as ‘the person chosen by Suzumiya-san’.

 

That’s a little disturbing, actually.

 

And yet, this doesn’t make sense.  The others were only interested in _me_ and my relationship with Haruhi because of Haruhi herself.  And you weren’t even aware that she was a powerful person!  Why do I matter, then?  Why come and talk to me?  How can I even represent ‘a person who is important to Suzumiya-san’ to you if you have no concept of who Suzumiya-san really is?

 

“Humans can be so stupid,” Ryuk shook his head.  “So interesting, but so stupid.  What makes you think that Haruhi has to have powers for her to choose you?  Why should only your friends, who recognise Haruhi as something more than a human, be able to see that you are important to her?”

 

Ryuk stared at me for a while.  I looked away.  It’s really hard to look that guy in the eyes.

 

“I know that you are important to Haruhi because she writes about you.”

 

I remembered some time ago, when Haruhi was complaining to me about all her concerns, I suggested she should write down her thoughts in a diary.  I didn’t think she would really do it, though!  Who would have thought that Haruhi Suzumiya would ever actually take my advice?

 

Wait, though.  If Haruhi has been writing about me, and Ryuk knows what she’s written, does that mean…

 

“Yes, she has been using the Death Note as a diary to record her thoughts about you.”

 

For God’s sake, Haruhi!  She has a notebook that can kill people and she uses it as a _diary_?  Doesn’t she know how dangerous that could be?  She could kill someone just because they happen to have stuck in her memory one day!  Is Haruhi even aware of what that notebook can do?

 

“She may be aware of its power, but if she is, she shows no sign of it,” Ryuk said, with a shrug.  “She said she didn’t bother reading the instructions because they were in English, and she doesn’t listen to me when I try to explain things to her.”

 

That, of course, is typical of Haruhi.  But then… a chilling thought occurred to me.  If Haruhi has been writing about me in the Death Note, shouldn’t I be dead?  Is it her desire which is keeping me alive?

 

“I wondered, when I first saw some of the things she had written, whether she was going to be unpleasantly surprised to find you dead in the morning.  I thought that would be really interesting.”

 

I’m not sure that I like a guy who thinks my untimely death would be ‘interesting’ to be in my bedroom at night.  He’s starting to sound like Asakura.

 

“But then she introduced me to you the next morning and it turns out that Kyon isn’t your real name.  That explains why she didn’t kill you.”

 

So only a person’s _real_ name can be written in the Death Note to kill them?

 

“That’s right.”

 

For the first time, I’m really glad my little sister decided to give the nickname that I’ve complained about for such a long time.  In fact, I hope nobody ever remembers my real name!

 

“I’m going now,” Ryuk said, suddenly, “Goodbye.”  And then he vanished before I could so much as raise a hand to wave to him.  What on Earth made him vanish so suddenly?  Heh, I suppose Haruhi woke up and he has to be right there with her all the time or else she’ll get mad.  _I_ don’t envy having to constantly stay by Haruhi’s side!  Although if he does get to spend all that time in Haruhi’s bedroom…

 

I switched off the light and crawled back into bed at that point, determined to spend the rest of the night peacefully and happily dreaming of Asahina Mikuru.


	3. Chapter 3

Shamisen, it turned out, was more disturbed by Ryuk’s visit than I initially thought – during our conversation last night, and even when I finally fell asleep, I hadn’t noticed that he had gone missing.  When my sister dragged me out of bed the next morning, it was already later than my usual waking time and had I run out of the house that very moment I would have only just made it to school on time.  However, I defy anyone to abandon a cute younger sister when she’s crying over her missing cat.  She’d searched the whole house before getting me out of bed and was convinced that he’d run away for good.  After another exhaustive search of the house we eventually found Shamisen hiding at the top of my wardrobe, and by the time I had coaxed him down and made sure he was okay I was well and truly late.

 

The trip up to school was somewhat more relaxing, even though the air was cold enough to bite once more.  All the roads were so much more quiet since there were no other school students rushing to get to school in time, so I was able to enjoy the scenery and atmosphere in peace and decided to take my time and make the journey in a leisurely fashion.  Once you accept that you’re going to be late for school, why rush?  Being late at all will get me in trouble, and it won’t make any difference whether I’m ten minutes late or half an hour.  Hmm, in that case, why don’t I stop at a café for some hot coffee to give me the strength to climb that abominable hill?  In fact, why should I bother going to school at all?

 

As I was standing in the café by the train station, waiting for my coffee, I seriously considered avoiding school for the rest of the day.  I will have to deal with the problem of Ryuk eventually, but I really don’t feel like it right now, especially when I still feel awful after a sleepless night!  I don’t yet feel prepared to face Koizumi’s urgent predictions of danger or step in if he has any more arguments with Asahina-san or Nagato-san.  Let them deal with Haruhi on their own for once!  I may be ‘the one chosen by Suzumiya’, but they should be able to get along without me for one day.

 

I wonder what Haruhi will think about me being absent from school?  Naturally it would probably make her extremely annoyed, but for some reason I don’t care all that much.  I realise that when Haruhi is annoyed it creates great difficulty for Koizumi, but it’s hard to feel sorry for that guy.  I’ll just tell her that I’m ill.  Nobody could blame an ill student for not attending school when they might spread their illness to other students.  Of course, Haruhi is not a rational human being, and she seems to have some super-human immune system – I don’t think I’ve even seen her sneeze.  She would definitely not accept illness as an excuse for not attending the SOS Brigade meeting, even if it were an acceptable reason for missing school!

 

Would she visit me if I were ill?  Maybe she would blame me for getting sick, but she does take her position as Brigade Chief very seriously.  Heh, I can just see her sitting by my bed while I’m ill, with her arms crossed and a sulky look on her face, threatening outrageous punishments if I don’t get better.  I wonder whether she’d bring me flowers?  No, surely that’s asking too much of her, and Koizumi is more likely to give me flowers than Haruhi is.  Actually, that’s a rather disturbing thought.

 

Flowers…

 

The café was on a very small plot of land, but in order to create a pleasant atmosphere the owners had preserved a small amount of ground outside the front of the building in which to plant some flowers.  Of course, although the weather had been getting slightly warmer of late and yesterday was quite a warm day, it was still winter and the ground was still hardened by snow.  The flower bushes were all snowed under, and not a single patch of green had been seen on them for months.  Spring was a fair way away yet.

 

So it was impossible that on the bush nearest the window there could be two large, lush, fully-open yellow roses.

 

“Excuse me, sir, didn’t you hear me…” the waitress who was holding my cup of coffee had come up behind me when I didn’t respond, but trailed off when she saw the roses, too.  “Oh my goodness, how pretty!  Roses this time of year?  When it’s almost winter?  I’ve never seen anything like it!”

 

I heard her exclamations turn into “Hey, hey!  Where are you going!” as I pelted out the door without even taking a sip of the coffee I had already paid for.  I ran up that hill to the school faster than I had ever done before, so much so that I barely noticed that overnight the trees lining the road had come into their full spring foliage.

 

I was gasping by the time I could see the school gates at the top of the hill and begun to wonder again why I was in such a hurry as a few minutes rest was unlikely to make whatever disaster Haruhi was causing wait any longer.

 

“Kyon!  KYON!  Hurry up!  Why are you so late?  You’ll have to be punished, you know!”

 

Haruhi, to my surprise, was running down the hill to meet me, but for once she did not give the impression that she truly wanted to punish me – she just seemed too happy.  Awww, were all the flowers a gift from Ryuk?

 

“Moron.  Ryuk had nothing to do with it.  Why are you so late to school?”

 

Because.

 

“I should have figured that you’re enough of an idiot to be late on the first day that school becomes interesting.”  She grabbed the ends of my scarf and started charging up the hill, dragging me behind.  There was a time when I would have complained about such harsh treatment, but I had too many things to think about right now to complain about how Haruhi was treating me!  “You have to see this, it’s amazing!  The Earth has gone crazy!  I wonder if the solar system has just decided today to rearrange its orbits to change the seasons?”

 

If it’s so amazing, why have you left this amazing thing to come looking for me?

 

“Shut up.  You’re a tardy moron.”

 

Even when she’s happy, she’s still rude.  Isn’t a happy Haruhi is supposed to be better?  Can you explain that to me, Koizumi?  This is the happiest Haruhi’s ever been and she seems worse than ever.

 

In between gasps of breath as I tried to keep up with Haruhi’s hell-bent charge up the steep hillside – how can she be so fit when she doesn’t go to any sports clubs any more? – I made a pathetic attempt to discuss with her the fact that actions which make one person happy can cause trouble for others, but I stopped short with surprise when we stepped through the school gates.

 

She probably wasn’t listening anyway.

 

The students were milling around outside in a way that was highly unusual for high school students.  Aside from the fact that everyone should be in class, it was too cold for them to be playing outside.  And even if it weren’t for the weather, high school students shouldn’t be _playing_ outside like little children.  It’s really not cool, guys.  But it was easier to see why they were all excitedly creating the kind of chaos that normally only ten-year-olds make.  When the entire school has become covered in greenery in the middle of winter, when the grass has grown green and new plants have grown everywhere, when you come to school to find nasty-looking creepers growing up the school buildings and blocking the doors as though they want to destroy the whole institution, when the great tree in the middle of the yard has strangely burst into bloom with a hundred different kinds of flowers, well, I would be excited, too.

 

Except that all I felt now was fear.

 

“Isn’t it wonderful?”

 

No, no it’s not.

 

“Of course it is!”  Haruhi twirled around beside me.  It was as though she couldn’t contain herself.  “First Ryuk, and now this!”

 

But it’s not good.  Imagine what could happen next?  What if weird things keep happening?

 

Haruhi glared at me.  She’s still the same old grouch.  “Then that’s even better, you idiot.  The more strange and unnatural things happen, the better!”

 

They could be bad things, though.  There could be monsters that eat us all, some people could suddenly obtain powers which they could use for evil means, or the seasons could change so much that the Earth’s whole climate changes and there are floods and earthquakes and whole cities get swallowed up…

 

I trailed off as Haruhi thrust a flower into my face.  Haruhi, you should do it less aggressively!  That would have been a far more romantic gesture!  No, what am I thinking?  That is entirely inappropriate, and besides it’s just plain weird.  But there I was nonetheless with Haruhi holding a flower up to my face.  And when I stopped worrying, it was beautiful.  It was a flower I’d never seen before, in fact, it probably didn’t exist before today.  It had the long, thin petals of a daisy, but many layers of them, more like a chrysanthemum; they were white, not a cold or sterile white but warm and creamy, like milk.  And from the centre came the finest streaks of other colours, not in straight lines as one would expect but in curls and wriggles; it was a marvellous effect.  And though scents do not carry well in cold air, the nature of this smell made it seem overpowering; something familiar, but which I couldn’t quite place, and so wonderfully clear and simple that for a moment I thought I could taste it.

 

“Do you see now?”  Haruhi asked me, softly.  “Do you understand?  Stop thinking that everything will always end badly!  Can’t you see how nice this is?”

 

Why did I assume that it was a bad thing that Haruhi Suzumiya was the person to be given the power of a god?  She was weird, and impulsive, and had the strangest desires imaginable at times, but she wasn’t malicious.  There were plenty of worse people in the world who could have these powers.  And Haruhi doesn’t really want to cause trouble, just make things interesting.  Wasn’t it possible that maybe, if she had the full run of her powers, that instead of ruining the world, she could make it a more wondrous place to live?

 

But has she ever used her powers for anything good in the past?  Remember being stuck in that dimension with the giant bug?  Or when she completely ruined the seasonal weather patterns just so she could have her ideal setting for that crazy movie about Asahina?  Not to mention how she made laser beams and all kinds of dangerous things come out of Asahina’s eyes!  This _is _the first time Haruhi’s done something that wasn’t really dangerous!  In fact, this is probably just as dangerous as what she did when we were filming the movie and she made all the sakura trees come into bloom at the wrong time of year.  How can I possibly trust her to start getting things right now?

 

Without realising it, I’d stepped away from Haruhi, and she was looking away from me now.  I followed her gaze and noticed, at last, that in the far corner of the schoolyard there was an apple tree, and the great ugly god of death, Ryuk, was reaching up to pluck one, gazing at it with an expression that I think may have been wonder.  I looked back at Haruhi, expecting to find the sort of adoring expression she had kept for Ryuk the day before, but instead, she was frowning.  Oh, come on, Haruhi, what do you have to be angry about _now_?

 

She glared at me and I rather wished I hadn’t said anything.

 

“God, you’re an idiot, Kyon,” she said, angrily, before throwing the flower in my face and running across the schoolyard to Ryuk.

 

I caught the flower as it drifted away towards the ground, and it was a few moments before I realised, with a chill, that by the time it landed at my feet it had changed.  Only a few moments ago it had been a beautiful, vibrant, living thing, and now, somehow, it was shrivelled and black.  Just what the heck was going on?

**   
**

Today is the first time in my life that I was grateful to see Koizumi coming towards me holding two cups of coffee.

 

“Good to see you, Kyon, though I believe you are a little late.  This is an interesting start to the day, however.  Don’t you agree?”

 

Why is he still smiling?  This is a huge thing that Haruhi’s done.  Shouldn’t you be panicking or something, Koizumi?  Or at least lecturing me on how serious this is and I must come up with a plan immediately?

 

“Indeed, this is perhaps the most serious crisis we have ever faced,” he said, agreeably, “But I find that sometimes, in the face of an insurmountable problem, it is better to remain calm and enjoy what one can of the situation rather than getting in a panic and worrying too much.”

 

Where are we, on the deck of the Titanic?

 

Koizumi sighed and put his coffee down.  We were now ensconced in the SOS Brigade clubroom, but the other buildings in the school, and indeed, the other rooms in the clubhouse, were still entirely impenetrable, although it seems the teachers have finally had the sense to call in the fire brigade and begin trying to cut through the mass of plant material that was blocking their way.  When I saw Koizumi wandering about with an extra cup of coffee, he pointed out that the SOS-Brigade clubroom’s window was not overgrown with vines as the rest of the building was, and to his credit we found that the room was indeed unharmed.  I must admit, it was very thoughtful of Haruhi to leave a room open for us!  It was much more pleasant than holding these conversations out in the schoolyard in the cold.

 

Although the source of the coffee remains a mystery.  Where exactly did you get that from, Koizumi?

 

“If you will recall, I once explained to you that the only reason Haruhi doesn’t completely change the world in accordance with her will is because her common sense is holding her back.”

 

Of course, he’s ignoring my questions.  But then, having left the coffee that I paid for behind at the café on the way to school, I can appreciate a free cup regardless of where it came from.

 

“Even though Haruhi has always wished for the world to operate in a particular way, she does understand the laws of physics, and this places a limitation on her powers.  As ardently as she wishes for strange or supernatural things to happen to her, at the same time she does not allow herself to think that these things are truly possible.”

 

Yes, I know all this.  That’s why we’ve ended up in such a weird situation where the SOS Brigade filled with supernatural beings and Haruhi didn’t even know who they really were.  And why she hardly ever sees the results of the warped things she does with her powers.  Not to mention it’s the reason I waste so much of my energy trying to stop her from finding out what she can really do!

 

“Yes, you’ve heard all this before,” Koizumi agreed, “But if er common sense ensures that she never sees the effects of her power, how is it that she was able to see Ryuk as soon as they met?”

 

Because he wanted her to, of course.  Don’t we all have free will?

 

“Perhaps we have the illusion of free will, but none of those who are close to Haruhi are truly free.  Remember, none of us could resist being drawn to the club when her wishes commanded that she be surrounded by fantastic people.”

 

It’s strange - I was having this conversation with Ryuk just last night, and trying to convince him of exactly the same thing that Koizumi is saying now.  But now I’m not so sure that Koizumi understands either.  “Haruhi found the Death Note, and that probably wasn’t a coincidence.  Ryuk just happens to be the owner of the Death Note.  But if what you’ve said about Haruhi in the past is true, that she always remains blind to the effects of her power, and also that she is in complete control of such supernatural things, it just doesn’t make sense.  Maybe Haruhi wanted someone like Ryuk to exist, and to meet him, but she doesn’t believe in gods, does she?  So according to that logic, her disbelief should prevent her from seeing him!”

 

Koizumi frowned.  “So what you’re saying is that Haruhi found the note because she wanted to, but she only saw Ryuk because he wanted her to.  Is that right?”

 

“He is called a god of death himself.  Maybe since he’s a god and has a god’s powers, he can relate to Haruhi in a manner different to the way that you do.”

 

“Perhaps.  But we shall return to this later.”

 

Damnit.  You’re just trying to change the subject because you don’t like me being right.

 

“The main issue here is that with the appearance of Ryuk, Haruhi has now become aware of the existence of those things which she most desires – things which are fantastic or supernatural, and which are not in accordance with the laws of physics.  And with that ‘safety’ removed, Haruhi’s imagination is finally running wild.  Now that she believes that the things she really wants are possible, and not just dreams, they are going to start happening more and more.  Very soon she may well become aware of her own abilities.”

 

I stared at him, smiling calmly at the chaos outside as he drained the last of his coffee.  Haruhi, self aware at last?  Haruhi with the power to do whatever she wants?  And this is why you’re remaining so calm?

 

Koizumi shrugged, with the biggest smile and the happiest, scariest face I had ever seen him make.  “Very soon, this may be completely out of our control, and I have no idea what to do about it.  In a situation such as this, getting into a panic may well just be counter-productive.”

 

So that was all?  You’re just giving up?

 

“Well, yes and no.”  He gave a great sigh and looked suddenly serious as he watched one of the plant masses that the fire brigade had hacked through suddenly grow back again and sprout bulging, juicy-looking fruit almost instantaneously.  “I believe that at this point there is little that I can do; there are few clues as to how to continue, and rushing in with no idea exactly of who Ryuk is may be foolish.  Things have already gotten to far out of hand for us to try to intervene in our usual manner – not only has Haruhi become aware of the existence of the Ruyk, but the rest of the school and many other people in this city have as well.  It seems clear that we can never restore things to their previous state – unless we can persuade Asahina to travel back in time to alter the situation at its beginning, and it seems unlikely that she will co-operate.”

 

He made this last comment in a very distasteful manner.  Hey, don’t speak about Asahina in such a rude way!

 

“Well, you may say that.  Even after I’ve warned you to keep an eye on her, you still remain blinded by her appearance of weakness.  Or maybe even just her appearance.  With the ability to travel through time she is powerful, and that means she could be very dangerous if she wanted to be.”

 

Sometimes I really don’t like this guy.

 

“You should really consider her ability more!  Think about it.  If Asahina-san wanted to get rid of somebody, she wouldn’t have to kill them or even confront them – all she would have to do is find out who that person’s parents are and how they met, and she could go back in time and interfere with the timelines so that the parents never meet and that person would never even be born.”

 

Of course, Koizumi doesn’t know that Asahina-san can’t just jump through time whenever she wants – she can’t do a thing without permission from her superiors, and I suspect they have already told her not to interfere this time.  I considered informing him that his plan was impossible, but then I remembered the confrontation between him and Asahina the day before – perhaps she didn’t _want_ Koizumi and Nagato to know that she was now powerless.  Even if I don’t want to get involved in their conflict, if I have to take a side, I would rather side with Asahina than Koizumi.  I don’t even have to think about it.

 

It’s a pity, though.  Having Asahina-san go back in time and prevent Haruhi from finding the Death Note is an appealing solution.  Since Ryuk wants to get his Death Note back and give it to somebody else, he might be able to convince Haruhi to return it, but if she still has the knowledge that Ryuk exists then strange things will keep happening.  If only Asahina-san could change the past, we wouldn’t have to worry about that.

 

Down in the yard, Haruhi was still in the corner of the yard where Ryuk’s apple tree stood.  He had climbed onto the higher branches now and looked rather odd with his head and shoulders sticking out of the top of the tree and the rest of his body hidden by the leaves while he feasted on the apples at the top of the tree, having already eaten a lot of the ones towards the ground.  As I watched, Haruhi, who had been standing on the ground up until now, jumped towards the lower branches and hoisted herself up into the tree with surprising agility, and Ryuk disappeared from view as he ducked his head below the foliage to meet him.

 

Damnit, why should I care about her?  About either of them?  Haruhi didn’t seem to care much about the rest of us any more.  As much as I complained about school before, I had begun to like it.  There were a lot of times when I even liked the SOS Brigade, as stressful as Haruhi’s antics were sometimes.  Maybe she founded the brigade for some silly reasons, but we did some good things.  Certainly the brigade had been good for Yuki, I think – she had become a lot more expressive, and nowadays she really takes an interest in things!  Especially since she sometimes goes to the computer club now.  And really, when I think about it, hadn’t the brigade really been very good for me?  What did I really have before that?  Maybe life was safer before then, but now it’s a lot more interesting!

 

And it seems that now that Haruhi’s found something even more interesting, our Brigade Chief is going to just abandon her brigadiers and let the club go to rot.  I really wish she had never met Ryuk.

 

“Perhaps,” Koizumi agreed.  “That’s definitely a possibility.  But we need to learn more about Ryuk first.  It may not be a simple task to prevent their meeting.  If Ryuk is indeed a god, then he may well have more power than any of us.  It’s possible that he intended to reach Haruhi specifically, and if that’s the case then it’s most likely impossible for any of us to stop him – he could simply kill any of us with that Death Note before he hands it over to Haruhi.”

 

Oh, of course, _now_ you admit that he may be another god other than Haruhi.  You’re making it sound like your own idea!

 

Koizumi just shrugged and smiled again.  “I suppose the existence of other divine beings was always a possibility, merely one that I had not considered.  It is true that the Organisation believe her to be the only god as we believe her to be the creator of this world, but then again we may be mistaken.  In fact, it seems highly likely that Ryuk is indeed divine if he was able to make himself visible to Haruhi in his present form.  If he did not have the kind of power that could match hers – that is, if he was not created by her, but exists outside the realm of her power and the realm over which she is god – then he would be in the same situation as all the rest of us.  He would be limited by the usual limitations of Haruhi’s power: that she does not become aware of things that she believes to be impossible, even if she wants them to be true.  But Ryuk was not held back by those constraints, and so it seems that even if his powers do not match Suzumiya’s, he is not _under_ her power.”

 

I looked back at the apple tree again – the two of them were sitting underneath it, now, and Haruhi was hugging Ryuk happily while he stared up through the leaves, apparently having sated his appetite for apples now.

 

Not under her power, eh?  Then is she under his?

 

“I don’t think Ryuk really intended for Haruhi in particular to find the note.  I don’t think that part was planned.  She just found the Death Note, which is definitely a result of her desire to find strange things, but I don’t think Ryuk left it there for her in particular.”

 

“How do you know all this?”  Koizumi asked, sharply.

 

Well, Ryuk walked through my bedroom wall last night and had a long talk with me, of course.  What do you expect him to do?  It’s almost standard procedure for any new freaks at this school.

 

“But this is fantastic!”  Koizumi gripped my arm tightly and leaned over me.  “If you’ve been talking to Ryuk and you know anything at all about him, then it could help us to formulate a plan!  What did he tell you?  Did he give you any hints?  Why did he come to you if he’s not from an organisation like the rest of us?”

 

Oh, Koizumi, you should know that by now.  I’m the one chosen by Suzumiya-san, of course.  Even Ryuk knows that, and he doesn’t even know who she is.  Although when I look at them playing together under the apple tree down there, while the school goes mad all around them, I’m not even sure that I’m that any more.

 

I pushed him away and stood up.  “Don’t get so comfortable with me.”

 

He didn’t even object or joke about it this time.  “Sure, Kyon, but tell me what Ryuk said to you!  Did he say anything that could help us?  Anything at all?”

 

Look, I don’t feel like talking about this right now!  Just let me go and get some fresh air!  And I need to find Nagato and Asahina and talk to them, too.  “Look, I don’t remember exactly if anything he said was useful.  Maybe.  I’ll think over it and see if I can think of any clues.”

 

“But Kyon, was there anything…”

 

“Just leave me alone!”

 

Koizumi stared at me, looking shocked.  Ah, Kyon, an outburst like that is really uncool, you know?  All this craziness must really be getting to me at last if I’m yelling at someone like Koizumi as though I’m a child.  It’s all the stress, I’m sure of it.  I just need to get out and relax, that’s it.  Then I’ll be fine.

 

But before I could apologise, or yell some more, or just storm out of the door without saying any more – I hadn’t decided which course of action to take yet – there came a familiar-sounding scream from close by.  Without even looking or speaking to each other, both Koizumi and I dashed out the door and came face to face with the source of the noise.  Up until now, the vines that had decided to take over our school had been very peaceful and docile about it.  They hadn’t hurt anyone, merely covered all the doors and windows in the school so that nobody can get in.  But now it seems they had decided, on a whim, that Asahina Mikuru is not allowed to reach the SOS Brigade club room.  As she struggled on the corridor floor, with beautifully-scented flowering creepers winding more and more tightly around her body, she certainly didn’t look much like the only person who could stop the madness wrought by Haruhi and Ryuk.  She didn’t look powerful at all.

**   
**

_Nagato, where are you?_

 

I bolted blindly through the corridors of the clubhouse, too scared to think much about where I was going.  Damn it, where _is_ she?

 

I don’t know what the hell that plant thinks it’s going to do to Asahina, but its intentions don’t seem to be pleasant!  Koizumi and I had tried to help Asahina, but there was nothing we could to do to free her.  A whole knot of the vines had attacked me when I tried to help her, as though this plant had a mind of its own.  Perhaps it does; I thought it would attack me as it had her, but it merely threw me against a wall.

 

“Can’t you do anything?”  I pleaded with Koizumi, who had been thrown against the opposite wall and had slumped to a sitting position, panting heavily.

 

“I just tried to,” he said, with a smile of surrender.  “It didn’t seem to do much good.

 

That’s not what I meant.  Can’t you use some kind of esper power to free her?

 

“I doubt it.”

 

Doubt?  Don’t you know?

 

He didn’t give me an answer, just sighed as he stood up and brushed absently at his blazer.  Then he edged cautiously towards Asahina with a look of resignation.

 

“What do you think about not interfering with Suzumiya now?”  He asked, sounding defeated.

 

She turned to look at him – up until now she had kept her face hidden.  “Please, just help me.  I can’t do anything like this.”

 

Koizumi shrugged helplessly.  “I can’t do anything either.  Isn’t it ironic?  You could save all of us but you won’t even save yourself.”

 

Asahina stopped struggling so that the vines would calm down and looked at him with a hardened face.  “What are you talking about, Koizumi?”

 

“You could travel back in time.  You could stop Suzumiya from ever finding the Death Note.  You could prevent all of this from happening.”

 

Her eyes widened and she shook her head.  “Please don’t talk about this as though it is something so simple.  You wouldn’t understand my limitations.”

 

“What I don’t understand is why you stay loyal to your superiors when...”

 

“STOP IT!”

 

They both looked at me in surprise.  I’m really getting out of control today, aren’t I?  Who would have known that I could have a temper like this?

 

“Just stop it.  I don’t care about your stupid politics – nothing you’re doing is helping right now!”

 

They both fell silent.  What a bizarre scene this was for an SOS Brigade tactical meeting, sitting on the floor of a corridor full of angry vegetable life.  Asahina looked uncomfortable.  Koizumi just seemed pensive, staring at the floor.  Finally, he looked up.

 

“What do you want me to do?”

 

I don’t know.  Why are you asking me for orders?  Since when was I in charge?  You’re the one who knows everything.  But if I’m the only person today who hasn’t suddenly become a child, maybe I should be taking charge.

 

“I don’t care about that.  We’re not countries at war, we’re the SOS Brigade.  We’re supposed to work together.  Now, can you help her or not?”

 

“You know I can only use my powers under certain conditions…”

 

I’m sick of this.  “Can you help her or not?”

 

“Alright, I’ll try,” he said, and I began to see a faint blue outline of light around his body.  “But I doubt I’ll be able to do very much.  I can hold them off, but I suggest you find Nagato-san.  If anyone can help us now, it’s her.”

 

I didn’t wait to see whether Koizumi’s counterattack was useful or not; I just ran.  And so now I find myself pelting frantically through the whole of the school, trying to think where Nagato might have gone in all the madness.  The only ‘usual place’ she goes is the club room, and it’s pretty clear that she wasn’t there at all.  So where else could she possibly be?  What else is there in this school that could possibly interest an alien computer interface?

 

Books?

 

For the first time in… well, it had been five minutes, but it seemed like a long time – I stopped and took note of where I am.  I had come a considerable way from the clubhouse by now and I was definitely in the vicinity of the library.  Could it be, in this time of madness, that Nagato had gone looking for a book to read?  A few turns later I found myself pelting down an overgrown corridor towards that most enigmatic of aliens, who stood perfectly still at the end of the corridor, staring at the leafy mass that had grown over the library door.

 

But she’s not doing anything!  Does that mean that she _can’t_ do anything to get rid of this mess and reverse what Haruhi’s done?  Because if she can’t, we’re in trouble!  Now that I think about it, Nagato is probably our last hope in this instance – Koizumi and Asahina haven’t been able to do a thing, and as for our usual method of dealing with problems, well, Haruhi isn’t all that likely to listen to me any more, is she?

 

Damn it.  If it’s what I have to do to get Haruhi back to the SOS Brigade and caring about what happens to us, then I’ll do anything to try to get rid of Ryuk!  Even if it means talking to him again.  Yech.

 

I slowed down as I approached her, panting.  I hadn’t realised I’d been running that much.  She turned to look at me briefly, but then looked back to the library.

 

“It’s shut.”

 

Was she angry?  I’d never seen Nagato angry.  Is this what it looks like?

 

“Why don’t you open it?”  I asked, between gasping for air.

 

She didn’t answer.

 

“With the amount of power you have over data, you should be able to get rid of all this stuff and get into the library, shouldn’t you?”

 

“The Data Thought Entity may be pleased.  Haruhi Suzumiya is presently demonstrating exactly the kind of evolutionary potential which we have been looking for.  I have already collected and analysed the data, but it may be preferable to allow her to continue and observe her further actions.”

 

Like flower she had given me earlier; it wasn’t like anything else I had ever seen.  Evolutionary potential, eh?

 

“Can’t you even get rid of enough of the foliage to let yourself into the library?  And leave the rest?  Wouldn’t the Data Thought Entity be happy with that?”

 

She turned to look at me again as I straightened up.  “May I?”

 

Why are you asking for permission from me?  Do I have the authority to override the Data Thought Entity now?  But now that I think about it, this isn’t the first time that Nagato’s asked me for permission to use her abilities.  Just never in direct contradiction to the wishes of the Data Thought Entity.  Was I now such an expert on Haruhi Suzumiya that I was allowed to make those decisions?  That’s too much responsibility!  But then, even Koizumi has been deferring to me…

 

How had I forgotten?  Asahina!  In a rush to get back I grabbed Nagato’s hand, intending to pull her along behind me, and she jumped away, blushing, and looking rather shocked.  Aw, how cute!

 

“I’m sorry, Nagato, but I was overexcited.  You have to come up to the club room, Asahina-san is in trouble, and if you can do anything at all to help her then I give you full permission.!”

 

With the barest of nods, she bolted back towards the clubroom, and suddenly I found myself running again.  Do I have to come?  I only just got here!

 

When we finally returned to the scene of the drama it became clear that Koizumi hadn’t been able to give Asahina-san much help.  I could still see the faint outline of blue that suggested he was exerting as much of his esper powers as he could, but he looked exhausted and he’d made barely any progress in releasing Asahina.  I suppose perhaps these aren’t the optimum conditions for the use of his powers?  Oh, whatever.  Nagato’s here!  Let her take care of it!

 

Koizumi ‘let go’ and the aura of his power disappeared immediately, without seeming to make any difference to Asahina’s plight.  She looked at me, gratefully, and I wondered exactly what had passed between them since I was gone.  Damn it, we’re supposed to be a team.  I’ve had enough of this petty bickering.  If Haruhi isn’t going to stick around to keep the SOS Brigade together, then I’m just going to have to try.

 

Anyway, can you do anything to release her, Nagato?

 

“It is a simple matter.  I can rewrite the data to make them too weak to hold her.  Is that acceptable?”

 

Again with the permission.  Of course it’s okay!

 

Nagato muttered a few words and suddenly the vines, though they still wriggled a little as though they were alive, fell limp, and I reached down to pull the cowering Asahina out of their way.  Thank you, Nagato!  That was simple enough, wasn’t it?  I don’t think the Data Thought Entity can complain about that!

 

“Um…” Koizumi said tentatively, “I don’t want to ruin your romantic moment…”  Shut up!  I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that I’m holding Asahina-san right now!  Although maybe I should, since I don’t know when I’ll get this opportunity next.

 

“Kyon, pay attention!  I don’t think the plant liked having its data rewritten!”

 

The particular vine which had ensnared Asahina had slunk back into the door it came out of, but now through the open door we could see a rising mass of foliage.  It gathered itself together and seemed to hesitate, suspended, for a few moments, before it launched itself forwards, through the doorway towards us, so forcefully as to suggest that it had given up on capture and simply wanted to crush us all.

 

Only Haruhi could create conscious, vindictive plants.  How ridiculous.

 

“The clubroom!”

 

Koizumi was right – the clubroom so far seemed to be immune to the invasion of the plants and so with a heave of my already exhausted body I pulled Asahina to her feet and we dashed just those few metres up the corridor with me almost carrying her as the seething wave of aggressive plant life surged up behind us.  We fell through the door rather than running and Koizumi slammed it shut in the face of the onslaught, leaning against us in case they should try to break through.

 

Silence.

 

Well, silence except for the weird sound of creepers slapping half-heartedly against the closed door.

 

“Do you want me to get rid of them?”  Nagato asked, at last.

 

You can do that?

 

She nodded.

 

All of them?  You can reverse everything Haruhi’s done today?

 

She nodded again.  When nobody said anything in response, she added, “It would probably be advisable.  There is no way to predict the potential destabilising effect this even could have on the environment or natural ecosystem.”

 

But what about the Data Thought Entity?  It didn’t want you to change anything, did it?  And what about you, Asahina?  Didn’t you want to continue to observe the effect that Haruhi is having?  To get a better understanding of her position in space-time or something like that?

 

Nagato said nothing.  Asahina looked at the ground for a few moments, and then said, shakily, that if things were allowed to go on as they were now, with Haruhi making changes this dramatic, she could alter the future and that could have untold consequences for the time agency.  I have to wonder if that’s really true.  She doesn’t sound too sure of it herself.  I wonder if perhaps her motivations have more to do with being attacked by plans than with the orders from her superiors.

 

“Are we all agreed, then?”

 

“You know my position,” Koizumi said, sternly.  He was still pressing his back against the door as though the vines were going to attack and squeeze us all to death at any moment, although he showed no signs of having to struggle to keep it shut.

 

Asahina just stayed sitting on the floor and wouldn’t look at me – I suppose I can take her silence as an agreement if she says nothing else.  And Nagato, as always, remained completely silent.  Are you sure that it’s okay for you to do this, Nagato?

 

She nodded.  “May I?”

 

And once again, the decision comes back to me, for the third time today.  When did I become the leader?  I never asked for this responsibility!  But I had said, hadn’t I, that I would do whatever I could to get rid of Ryuk.  And that even if Haruhi was giving up on the SOS Brigade, I wasn’t going to.  And so I turned to Nagato and nodded my consent, and silently, almost imperceptibly, she nodded, and her lips began to move.

 

The dry sound of violent vegetable life flailing against the door stopped almost immediately, and after a few moments we could all hear the cries of surprise from the schoolyard.  Koizumi and I both ran to the window, where all around we could see the greenery shrinking back; the vines retreated from the school buildings and the flowers closed back up as though they were growing in reverse rather than simply shrivelling and dying.  Most amusingly, Haruhi and Ryuk had climbed to the top of the apple tree, which shrank and shrank until it gently deposited them both on the ground.  Haruhi, I noticed, with some satisfaction, did not look pleased.

 

“It is done,” Nagato said.  The entire process had only taken a few minutes.  That one little alien girl is so powerful it scares me sometimes.

 

“I was unable to completely eliminate the anomaly.  However, it has been contained to a single life form.  It should remain that way unless Suzumiya becomes more unstable.”  She pointed towards the school gate; where the rest of the yard had returned to the dull greys of winter, there remained one smudge of green against the fence.

 

“In that case, I suppose we can assume that for now, the situation has stabilised,” Koizumi, said, also observing the scenes down below.  With the source of excitement removed and the confused emergency workers already departing, the teachers had begun trying to round students up and herd them back into the classrooms.  “I expect that we’ll be required to return to class quite soon.”

 

We’ll have a few minutes, though.  And with that in mind, I turned my attention to Asahina.  She was still sitting on the floor where we had fallen while on the run from the plants, and had barely looked around.  She was shivering, too, and it was then I noticed that even in this cold she wasn’t wearing a coat.  Naturally, being such a gentleman I didn’t think twice about dropping to the floor beside her and draping my coat about her shoulders.

 

“What happened to you, Asahina-san?”  Koizumi asked.  He seemed at least a little more sympathetic to her now, and was at least prepared to listen to her instead of threatening.  Looks like he is capable of showing some concern for the weak and helpless after all.

 

“I saw Itsuki-kun and Kyon-kun heading to the clubhouse earlier but I didn’t follow for a while because I thought it would be pointless.  I mean, I thought it would be impossible to get into like all the other buildings were.  Then I realised the same thing you did?”

 

And what thing is that?  But Koizumi nodded in understanding.  “The sudden appearance of all these weird plants can only be the work of Suzumiya-san.  They’re attacking the school because it’s a place that Suzumiya-san despises and would like to get rid of.”

 

Ah, now that I think about it, that makes a lot of sense, and particularly with the amount of chaos it created.  The school is so restrictive and full of rules that it must be by far the most stifling and frustrating thing in Haruhi’s life, and if there’s one thing that makes Haruhi go crazy, it’s rules.  In fact, she’s probably never been as frustrated in her life as she is when she’s at school.  So it makes sense that she would lash out at the school’s restrictiveness in a way that would create chaos.

 

“I never even thought of that!” Asahina-san said, frowning.  Ah, even when she frowns, it’s cute.  Koizumi nodded in agreement, and although Nagato made no movement she was still watching and listening to our conversation rather than absorbed in a book, which must surely be an indication that we’re on the right track.  “And from there it makes even more sense that this room is the only room that we were able to get into.”

 

Ah, of course.  I understand perfectly.

 

… actually, why _were_ we able to get into this room?

 

“It’s obvious, of course,” Koizumi said.  No it isn’t!  Don’t talk down to me!  “Suzumiya-san may hate school, but the SOS Brigade is also the one thing about school that she _doesn’t_ hate.  It’s a place where there are no rules or restrictions.”

 

But there _are_ rules.  Asahina-san has to wear all those costumes, especially the maid costume, and she has to serve us tea.  Not to mention she has to spill one in every three cups because Haruhi has gotten into her head that all maids must be clumsy or they won’t be cute enough.  Some strange idea like that.

 

Koizumi looked annoyed.  “Don’t make jokes.  Those don’t really count as rules.”

 

There _are_ rules here, though, even if they’re mostly about Asahina.

 

“I suppose that’s true.  It’s different, though.  For one thing, those rules result in chaos rather than order, and for another thing, the rules are all made by Suzumiya-san herself rather than being imposed on her by somebody else.  Ultimately the point is that the reason we could enter this room is that it’s the only thing about school that Suzumiya-san doesn’t hate, and the only thing here that she considers worthwhile, and so our club room was preserved rather than shut off like the rest of the school.”

 

Asahina nodded.  “I had come to the same conclusion, and it seems that we were both right.”

 

To a sane person the kinds of reasons we are discussing would seem like utter nonsense.  I suppose that having lived with such nonsense for such a long time it no longer seems like nonsense.  Has Haruhi made us insane?

 

I looked to Nagato – she had gone back to reading.  I wondered whether she had thought to come to the club room, too.  What was she thinking when she arrived at school this morning to find everything closed off?  Why the library?

 

I forgot all musings about Nagato, however, when Asahina-san sighed and leaned on me, apparently exhausted by the traumas of the day so far.  And who could blame her?

 

“Anyway, I realised that this room must be accessible so I tried to get up here,” she continued, and then bit her lip.  “Actually, I’m not sure what I thought I was going to do once I got here.  I just hoped that there would be a clue that we could use to figure out a plan, so I went ahead and did it.  As soon as I came inside the plants started to move around more, and they seemed to get more restless the further I walked.  Of course, I didn’t notice this until it was too late.  I guess that since they don’t have eyes I didn’t suspect that they could be watching me.”  She laughed weakly at that.  “Once I got close to the room they really attacked me.  And I tried to run away, but I got caught.  And then you found me.”

 

She sighed and closed her eyes.  Ah, even if her ability to travel through time makes her as powerful as Koizumi suggests, she is still such a delicate little girl.  Naturally I hugged her closer to me as the poor girl was clearly in need of some comfort and moral support.

 

This doesn’t make a lot of sense, though.  The plants didn’t attack any of the rest of us.  Why would they go for Asahina?

 

“I think that should be obvious,” Koizumi said, with a delicate cough.

 

What exactly do you mean by that?  Are you implying something?

 

He sighed as well.  “Perhaps I have never discussed this openly with you and perhaps that in itself was a mistake, but I don’t think it should be too surprising that a creation of Haruhi should target Asahina-san.  You, Kyon, are the one chosen by Suzumiya-san.”

 

Yes, we all know that.  Get on with it.

 

“Put simply, Suzumiya-san doesn’t wish any of the members of the SOS Brigade to date anyone, especially you.  She suspects, however, that you are interested in Asahina-san.”

 

If she has suspicions, she should ask me directly; we wouldn’t have to deal with the difficult things her subconscious creates.  And if she’s suspicious of me, why is she attacking Asahina?

 

“That’s not the point!  Both of you have been far too careless lately.  Suzumiya-san has seen the two of you interacting in ways that arouse her suspicions, and when that happens she’s liable to do all manner of things.  She could even recreate the world again – couldn’t she, Asahina-san?”

 

With that, Asahina-san made a barely audible squeaking sound and pulled herself to her feet.  Mildly annoyed at having been deprived of such a pleasant experience, I followed suit, as Asahina-san stood next to me, muttering quickly something like “I have to be more careful, I can’t allow things like that to happen…”  Calm down.  Koizumi is grossly exaggerating this situation!  It’s nothing of the sort!

 

“No, I’m not,” he said.  “Suzumiya-san is wild enough right now as is – we don’t need her to do anything even more dangerous, especially when Asahina-san could turn out to be the only one who can fix this situation.”

 

He tried to stare down Asahina-san with his serious face, but she was staring back at him just as steadfastly.

 

“I cannot do what you’ve asked of me, Itsuki,” she said, firmly, “Not under any circumstances.  Not yet.  I absolutely cannot make such a major alteration to a time plane without explicit permission.”

 

“Well, why don’t you apply for it, then?”

 

“Because I have no wish to interfere with this event at its root!”

 

“Don’t you realise the danger?”

 

“Of course I do!” she snapped.  Wow, this is a version of Mikuru even I’ve never met before!  Keep this up and you could be as scary as Haruhi.  “I was the one who was attacked, wasn’t I?  Of course I realise what’s at stake.  But the appearance of the Death Note is very significant for future events.  There’s absolutely no way I can act without knowing the full implications for the future.”

 

All this bickering.  I’m beginning to tire of it.  Though I’m grateful for Asahina drawing attention away from the original matter of concern..  Not that it could really be called a relationship  Haruhi’s never made a rule outright that members of the SOS Brigade are forbidden to date, but I think we all know what will happen if we do.  Right now I feel pretty fed up with this situation.  Why should I continue to deny myself pleasure just because it annoys her?  How is it fair that I have to be so careful, and to have such a frustrating friendship with Asahina-san, just because Haruhi is a petulant child who happens to have the power of a god?

 

And why does it now that Haruhi doesn’t seem to care about me any more?

 

“She does care.”

 

To my amazement, it was Nagato who had spoken.  And although it was rather rude of me, I laughed.

 

I really, really don’t think she does.  All that concerns Haruhi now is Ryuk – I don’t know whether I even deserve the dubious title of the one chosen by Suzumiya any more.  And she doesn’t care about this club any more, either – look what’s happening.  She’s abandoned us and now we’re standing around here bickering.  I’m sorry, Haruhi.  I said I was going to try to keep the SOS Brigade together, but right now I just can’t be bothered.  It’s too hard when you’re not here.  I’m better off in class, asleep, because I’m sure I’ll need plenty of sleep to cope with whatever you invent tomorrow.

 

“Of course Suzumiya-san cares about you,” Asahina-san said, timidly, back to her old self again.  I didn’t even care that she was holding my hand.  I just wanted to get out.

 

It seemed that in the middle of this we had all forgotten that the rest of the world was still moving on without us, but we received an unexpected reminder in the form of Haruhi herself bursting through the club room door.  Asahina-san quickly dropped my hand, but I don’t think Haruhi was sharp enough to notice that little indiscretion.

 

“Hey there, Kyon, where the hell have you been?” she said, grabbing me by the tie as she was so fond of doing.  “You just disappeared on me before!  Have you been cooped up here the whole time?  When all this other stuff was going on, all you were doing was sitting around drinking tea or something?”  She seemed frustrated, or angry, or maybe even worried as she looked around at us all.  “Something weird and amazing happened, and all of you just came up here like you normally do and did all the things you normally do.  Just the same old routine.”

 

She looked back at me, and then down to the ground, and her hand slackened on my tie.  Damn, why can’t this girl ever discuss her feelings properly?

 

“You missed out…”

 

“We came up here to get a better view.  Just in case any Triffids had appeared.”  Why did I say that?  I shouldn’t encourage her.  But what else can I say?  I can’t help feeling that she needs to be reassured somehow.

 

She looked at me sceptically, as though she thought I was feeding her a lie of some kind.  “Moron.  Triffids?  What kind of made-up crap is that?  And why the hell would you need to be up here to see them?”

 

“They’re carnivorous alien plants.  They’d be right at home here.  And they can walk, too.  But they tend to obscure themselves in large patches of plants or rubbish, so I needed a bird’s-eye view to look for them.”

 

She was still staring at me, dubiously.

 

“Also, I wanted to stay out of range of their stingers.”

 

Haruhi still didn’t look convinced.  Can’t I do anything right with you?  Just give me a break, why don’t you?  Give me one day when I can do things right and not cause more trouble.

 

And then, without warning, her grip on my tie tightened, and I found her looking at me with that really scary look.  She didn’t say anything, but I could read what she was thinking plainly enough.  That was a look that said ‘There’s hope for you yet.’

 

“Come on, those dumb teachers have all said we have to go back to class now.  Can you imagine it?  Go back to class, on a day like this?”

 

Class sounds like a good idea.  Oh, I’m _really_ looking forward to the SOS Brigade meeting after school today to investigate the mysterious events that took place this morning.  Would anyone like to take my place?  I’d rather be taking a nap.

 

“By the way,” Haruhi added, before she dragged me out the door with her, “There won’t be any club meeting this afternoon as I’m going on patrol with Ryuk to look for more weird things!  That will be all!  Dismissed!”

 

Patrol with Ryuk, eh?  Despite the fact that going patrolling with Haruhi was almost always a nonsensical waste of time, it irritated me that an activity which traditionally included all club members was now just reserved for her and Ryuk.  I should be grateful – I can go home and get to bed early.  As Koizumi said, now that she’s aware, the effects of her powers are likely to result in bigger and bigger alterations to the natural world, which will be harder and harder for us to counter.

 

Especially, I thought, gloomily, with things becoming so tense with the rest of the SOS Brigade.  It was strange to think about this with Haruhi so close to me, dragging me along behind her on the way to class, but she’s abandoning the club.  Aliens, time travellers and espers who all look like humans just can’t compete with a big old god of death.  And how can I ever hope to be worth her time if none of them are, either?  The club just wasn’t as interesting as Ryuk, and it was hard for me to be interested in the club either.  The others can sit and argue all they want.  If Haruhi’s bored with me, then it’s a good thing I’m rid of them.  The sooner I remove myself from her troublemaking, the better.


	4. Chapter 4

That day was the first time in a while that I'd gone home early; Haruhi had dashed out of the classroom as soon as school ended and so I considered myself free to wander home as peacefully as I liked. After an afternoon with Haruhi staring out the window at Ryuk I wasn't in the mood for hanging around – I wanted to relish any bit of peace that I could get. It was no longer likely, but certain, that this was just the beginning. Nagato had been able to reverse the superficial effects of the plant invasion, but the real damage had been done as soon as Haruhi met Ryuk, and there wasn't much we could do about that right now. Yet we couldn't simply rely on Nagato to reverse everything that happened – soon enough there would be something too big for her to handle and then we'll have to come up with another plan.

I spent that night thinking of escalating, exponentially dramatic paranormal events and despite my best efforts, completely failing to come up with any plans at all. I've had enough of all this and I'd really rather not have anything more to do with Haruhi right now, but knowing that more things are going to happen means that I can't get it out of my head. Hey, Haruhi, maybe you've made me a responsible citizen! Now that's a scary thought.

Yet after that sleepless night, and several others that followed it, the huge disasters and weird events that were preying on my mind didn't happen. School continued for the rest of the week more or less as normal. Classes went on as though nothing strange had ever happened, and we had SOS Brigade meetings after school every day as usual.

Not that everything was completely normal. Not a single day went by without something strange happening, but they were far less outrageous and disruptive than that first incident had been. One day there were some odd meteor showers all over the planet as Earth apparently passed through the tail of a comet – puzzling astronomers the world over because they hadn't been aware of the existence of it until then. Another day several people were talking excitedly about seeing a ghost flitting between classroom at the school. Some of them thought it looked like Asakura Ryoko; when I asked Nagato whether it was true, she refused to say anything about the matter, or even acknowledge that I had asked her a question. And the paranormal press all over the world went into a frenzy as sightings of UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster suddenly became daily occurrences.

Haruhi, of course, was always one of the first to hear word of these stories and the first to seek out more information to try to see all these weird things for herself. She would come to me almost immediately to talk about it, but these encounters were always a little confusing. Whenever she came to me full of excitement about some new development and dragged me along with her to see whatever this new thing was, I didn't know how to react. Everything I saw just reminded me that Haruhi was getting out of control and the whole world could soon be out of control as well. It did please me, though, even a little, to see Haruhi so happy after she had been in a melancholy state for such a long time. Even with the sense of impending doom that was hanging around, I didn't really want to say anything that would crush her. But nothing I said seemed to please her, either. I just wasn't excited enough about the things that were happening to satisfy her, and ever time she dragged me off to talk about or see some new oddity she ended up getting annoyed and disappearing to go and talk with Ryuk instead. I was starting to think that it would be easier if I were the one to disappear.

SOS Brigade meetings were becoming odd as well – most of them were remarkably short, except for that one when we went patrolling around the school in search of ghosts. The meetings had changed, of course; the usual scene was now Ryuk standing in the corner, trying ridiculously to look inconspicuous, while Haruhi stood on a chair and talked excitedly about all the mad things that were going on and how this would be the Golden Age of the SOS Brigade. Yet as she grew happier, more exuberant and more enthusiastic, the rest of the Brigade became more subdued. Club meetings were increasingly becoming mere opportunities for Haruhi to talk at the rest of us. They grew shorter as increasingly there was little for anyone to do after Haruhi had run out of things to talk about. I was grateful for it; as the days went by, I could sense the tension between Koizumi, Asahina-san and Nagato growing. I'd tried to stay out of that as much as I could. Koizumi had remarked to me one time that on top of everything else that was going on, incidents of closed space had increased, but other than that I didn't talk much to any of them.

This was the situation when I reached the club room ahead of everyone else on a Friday afternoon, a little over a week after we had first been introduced to Ryuk. I was worn out from dealing with Haruhi and trying to avoid dealing with everyone else. Brigade meetings were going on but were subdued affairs as nobody but Haruhi did any talking at them any more. The supernatural occurrences may have been subdued, but they were gradually increasing, and Haruhi was fully aware of them. And this is why I was more surprised than ever when Nagato and I were alone in the club room, and she started to talk to me.

"There's something you should know about," she said, quietly.

It must be important if Nagato is talking about it.

"There is a paranormal event occurring in close proximity to us. However, it may be possible to prevent Suzumiya Haruhi from discovering it."

Does it really matter whether Haruhi finds out about things or not? They're happening so often and so obviously now that she finds out about everything that's going on.

"Paranormal occurrences will escalate exponentially as Suzumiya Haruhi learns of them. It is a feedback loop. Ryuk was the trigger that made Suzumiya Haruhi aware that such events were possible, but she still has strong beliefs in common sense and the laws of science which take much longer to wear down. The more strange things she becomes aware of, the more her common sense is reduced, and hence, the stranger the next events become."

But if a feedback loop has already started, there's little we can do about it, is there?

"Most of the events occurring at present are a long way away, in other parts of the country or the world. If we can prevent Suzumiya Haruhi from becoming aware of these things within her own neighbourhood, and keep them distanced from her, it will slow the rate of strange events until we can come up with a better plan." She finally looked up from her book. "I believe it is called 'damage control'."

That all makes sense, Nagato, but what exactly is the problem? Why don't you do something about it like you did last week with the plants?

"I was reprimanded for that incident," she said, quietly.

This was a shock. Nagato disobeyed orders?

"Strictly speaking, no." There was a long pause after that and I wasn't sure whether I should question her further, until she spoke again. "The Integrated Data Thought Entity believes that the situation is too unstable. As a result of the feedback loop, Suzumiya-san is becoming more perceptive of unusual data formations. If I choose to alter environmental data in any way, it may come to her attention, and that could make the situation worse."

So you were reprimanded for getting rid of the plants because Haruhi could see what you were doing?

"Correct."

Doesn't your boss realise that if you don't use your powers, Haruhi could see even weirder things? You're the one who can slow down Haruhi's changes, not someone who will make the process faster. If you can't do anything to prevent the problem that's arising right now, what are we supposed to do?

"Don't open the cupboard."

What? What the heck is that supposed to mean? But before I could question Nagato further about her cryptic responses, Haruhi burst through the clubroom door with Asahina-san and Ryuk in tow. In Asahina-san's case it was quite literally 'in tow'; Haruhi was dragging her by the arm, and I discovered that despite all of Haruhi's other annoying eccentricities, she had, as always, an excellent taste in costumes. I could not imagine any policeman looking as beautiful in their uniform as Asahina-san did. If the police force were to employ more people like Asahina-san, nobody would ever commit crimes any more. Nothing could be a greater deterrent than being exposed as a criminal by such a beautiful girl. Please be good citizens, everyone, or you'll make Officer Asahina cry!

"Hello everyone!" Haruhi said, cheerfully, dumping the bag containing their uniforms on the table – for Haruhi was also dressed as a police officer, having apparently lashed out and bought two costumes again. Rather than the adorable policewoman that Asahina appeared as, though, Haruhi looked frankly scary. The two of them could make a formidable crime-fighting team.

"Today is a very important day! With the increase of weird new things going on throughout the world, now is the time to advance the SOS Brigade's position in the school! We're going to appeal to the fools in charge of this school to make the SOS Brigade the official paranormal liaison…"

She rambled on for quite some time, as was her habit. I can only imagine that this was why Asahina-san was dressed as a police officer – to fit in with this appeal to become an official school 'ghost patrol' or whatever it is that Haruhi's talking about. Why is Asahina-san already in her costume? This is quite a diversion from the usual routine of Haruhi forcibly stripping Asahina-san's clothes off when they get to the club headquarters and me being thrown out of the room while she screams. I must say this seems rather more pleasant.

Haruhi was not interested in answering my question and continued rambling on about what a great day this would be for the SOS Brigade while making dramatic gestures towards Asahina. I suppose that her response, if I had asked her why she was dragging Officer Asahina around the corridors, would be nothing more than 'Why do we need a reason for that?' Ryuk, however, was paying attention to something other than Haruhi. For once.

"Haruhi dragged her into the girls' bathrooms immediately after class ended to make her put the costume on," Ryuk said, meandering across the room to stand beside me. "Apparently Asahina-san is to make a good example of the SOS Brigade's discipline to convince the staff that you should have this official status. Wearing the costume in the corridors was necessary to make an impression on all the student and staff population."

Haruhi stopped suddenly and looked around the room for the first time since she'd entered. "Where's Itsuki-san? He isn't here!"

"I believe Koizumi had business with his family tonight," was the first excuse I could come up with. I hadn't had the opportunity to speak with Koizumi yet today, but given that he had been looking exhausted and missing one or two classes over the last few weeks, I expected that he was currently trying to eliminate yet another occurrence of closed space. Much as he annoyed me most of the time, he was admirably dedicated to his work.

"Unacceptable!" Haruhi declared, pointing a finger in the air. "He will have to be punished!"

I'm strangely pleased by the possibility of somebody other than me being subject to Haruhi's punishment.

"It's extremely disappointing that the vice chief of the SOS Brigade is missing on the day that we're making a move to elevate our status," she said, with a frown, and then dismissed the problem with a shrug of the shoulders and a wave of her hand. "No matter! Mikuru-chan's police uniform should convince them all that we're by far the best people for this job."

I don't recall seeing any job advertisements for a squad of paranormal investigators around the school.

"Shut up. Mikuru-chan and I are off to tell the school people why they have to make us the official school ghost investigation squad! This school is clearly haunted and we need experts on the job!" Just as should be expected from Haruhi, I suppose. "Come on now, Mikuru-chan! This is the most important mission of your life! We cannot fail!"

And with that, she grabbed Asahina-san, who had not spoken a single word, and charged out the door again with no notice of the rest of us except for 'Take care of Ryuk, he wants more apples!'

As there always was after any grandiose idiocy from Haruhi, a silence fell upon headquarters again, except for the sound of Ryuk tucking into an apple. We now kept a basket of apples next to Asahina-san's tea set at all times on Haruhi's orders. It was also on Haruhi's orders that it was my job to keep it stocked up, and my money to pay for them. It makes perfect sense to Haruhi, of course, and considering the way my life has been since I met her, it's starting to make sense to me as well. Ryuk's presence is ruining my life so naturally I must be the one who feeds him. Hey, Haruhi, I still want to know why you can't just make apples appear if you're a god!

"She did," Nagato said, as she overheard my mutterings, "But I stopped her. Remember?"

"That was you?" Ryuk whirled around with an air of surprise. "You made the tree disappear from underneath us?"

"Correct." She didn't look up.

See, Ryuk, I told you that Nagato was powerful.

"She must be if she can unmake things." Ryuk seemed to be genuinely surprised. It's about time.

"It is a simple matter of rearranging data."

"You must be even more powerful than I am." Was he scared or bothered by this? No, I don't think so. But surprised, yes.

"We are different," Nagato said. "Each of us has power over different, mutually exclusive things. Therefore, it is inappropriate to compare us in terms of power. You cannot do what I do, and I cannot do what you do."

Ryuk shook his head, but seemed oddly pleased by this all the same. "I am not really interested in power. But if you control data, can't you do what I do? All the ability I have is limited to seeing people's names and life spans and killing them."

"Names, I do not know. And while the life span is a matter of data, there are too many unknowns for me to calculate with a reasonable margin of error."

"And the killing?"

"I am not authorised to terminate human life." She looked up, finally to stare at him. "Nor do I have any wish to."

And then she returned to her book. The conversation, it seems, was closed, and none of us have anything left to do until Haruhi returns. I looked at Ryuk, who seemed perfectly content with Nagato's refusal to pay him any more attention. He just muttered "How interesting" to himself with a contented grin before attacking another apple.

Well, this is boring. I could just leave, but Haruhi might be angry if she came back to find that I'd already gone home.

"Ryuk," I said, at last, and felt the unsettling experience of those eyes turning on me for the first time in a while, "Have you ever played Othello?"

 

A few minutes later I found myself thinking that perhaps playing Othello with a shinigami had not been such a useful idea. Koizumi was so terrible at this game that I had grown accustomed to playing without any need to think about what I was doing, and so could usually carry out a conversation easily enough. But Ryuk, even though he had never played this game before, was remarkably good at it, and I was having trouble keeping up. Damn you, Koizumi. If you hadn't been so crap at this game I wouldn't be losing to this creep right now.

"So… er… how have you been, Ryuk?" I asked, not sure how to begin.

"Excellent," he leered, flipping over a few pieces.

"Have you made any progress in convincing Haruhi to return your Note?" I realised, with a pang of guilt, that I had barely even tried to make any progress in this respect myself.

"No – despite professing that she cares very much about me, she has ignored every plea I have made for the return of the Death Note. She was unmoved, for example, by the story about how another Shinigami had lost his Note and will die if he doesn't find a new one." Ryuk didn't seem terribly concerned by his lack of progress, however, and I suspect our tenuous alliance may be in trouble.

"Are you beginning to believe what I told you? That she is not an ordinary human?"

"What do you mean by that?"

All the strange things that have been happening, of course! The plants that attacked the school, and the ghost stories, all the things like that!

Damn it, don't start winning while I'm ranting at you.

"Those incidents have certainly been very interesting, haven't they? This visit to the human world isn't turning out the way I expected to it, but that's not such a bad thing. Perhaps it's even better than the scenario I had previously planned."

That's what I was afraid of.

"Although I have yet to see anything that directly connects these unusual occurrences with Haruhi. Certainly she does wish for some strange things, but I am yet to see any evidence that these things are a result of her wishes."

You're very sceptical for an invisible god with a magic notebook.

"True," he said, with a grin. "But since none of these things happened on Earth, or at least not with such frequency, before I came here, your theory does have more merit than any other explanation I could give for these occurrences."

Sometimes I wish that there were another explanation so that it would no longer be my problem.

"You don't want these things to keep happening?" Ryuk seemed puzzled. It's understandable, I suppose. Not so long ago, I would have been surprised and confused had I met the current me who didn't like these weird things. But that was before I met Haruhi and knew how dangerous all these things were.

Aside from that, though, I think Ryuk definitely wishes things to continue as they are.

"You don't seem very concerned about Haruhi ignoring your arguments. Don't you want your Death Note back any more?"

Ryuk grinned at the board, took two of my pieces and then looked back at me. "At this point I don't particularly care. As I said, the present series of events have been very interesting, and that's exactly what I was hoping for. I'll get the Death Note back eventually, and I can tear out Haruhi's embarrassing notes then. Right now, I'd much rather observe the things that are happening now."

I sighed and placed a piece on the board with little thought or enthusiasm. It would be easier for me if my suspicions hadn't been true, but I'm not at all surprised to hear that Ryuk has changed his mind. The only consolation in this instance is that so long as Ryuk is entertained, there's no risk of him killing Haruhi. But if he doesn't want to leave, that's not an improvement either, and the unnatural disturbances will get steadily worse – who knows what will happen?

"You want to get rid of me, don't you?"

I stared at Ryuk, and he stared back.

"That's an interesting question."

I stared at the board for a moment instead when I could no longer hold Ryuk's gaze. Damn, he's winning again. I must learn to pay more attention to what I'm doing.

My first instinct is to say yes. When you appeared to Haruhi you set off all kinds of trouble. I've hardly been sleeping all week because I'm so concerned about what Haruhi is going to do next. The same things that are interesting for you are… well, they're interesting to me too, but they're also so dangerous and troublesome that I'd rather they didn't happen.

But on the other hand, now that Haruhi knows that supernatural things exist, it doesn't matter whether Ryuk is here or not. The damage is done, and there's nothing we can do to undo it now. Except to have Asahina-san travel backwards in time to prevent that from happening, but I didn't mention that to Ryuk. Asahina-san refuses to do it, and I can't think of any way to eliminate Ryuk while working within this time plane. Besides, if you disappeared, it could make problems worse. She would be upset that you were gone, and when Haruhi is upset, things have a tendency to get even more dangerous.

"Is that so?" Ryuk said, thoughtfully. I don't think it was a helpful kind of thought. He was more likely thinking of ways to make this situation more chaotic, so that it would be more 'interesting'.

This creature annoys me so much, and not just because I think he's going to beat me at Othello. And yet I can't do anything about it. Even if I could… the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that if Ryuk disappeared with no explanation, Haruhi would become even more upset and then we would have more trouble on our hands. How is it that he managed to become so close to her in such a short period of time? She didn't become interested in any of the rest of us in the same way she is with Ryuk. Hell, I'm 'the one chosen by Suzumiya' and while I suppose we made friends very quickly for Haruhi, it did take a long time for us to become particularly close, and then this creature can just appear out of thin air one day and become more important than…

But I am just a human, after all. As far as Haruhi is concerned, none of us are anything but ordinary humans. How could I – we – ever compete with a god for her attention? We're not nearly as interesting as something like that. Oh, no, a lousy human like me could never compare to a god of death, no matter how ugly and disturbing he is. She's so crazy about Ryuk that if it were a human, anyone would think she was in love with him.

That's a terrifying thought! I wish I could stop thinking about things like this. Although I really should be feeling sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to have Haruhi fall in love with them.

Thoughts of love aside, though, Haruhi has stopped caring about everything except Ryuk. And that's why everything is getting worse and worse now. Because Ryuk took Haruhi away from us… I mean me… no, the SOS Brigade, and now everything else is going to pieces. That's why I have to get rid of him, because he's taken away my…

I frowned at the board. I was only losing because I kept getting distracted. There were more black pieces than white on that board, but somewhere there had to be a way that I could still win.

I shouldn't be thinking about this in such a personal way. Ryuk never meant any harm to me personally; he hadn't known that Haruhi was a nutcase and he hadn't known that she would become obsessed with him and that her friends would get hurt. If getting rid of Ryuk would make the problem worse then it's selfish to think that this is the best solution just because the relationship he has with her makes me feel…

"It's not as though it's possible for you to get rid of me anyway," Ryuk said, interrupting my train of thought.

I had been trying to focus very hard on the Othello and so it took a moment for me to realise that he was talking about Haruhi.

Ha. I wish.

"There's nothing you can do to make me go away," he said, with the same old leer. Doesn't he have any other facial expressions? "I'll be here for as long as Haruhi is the owner of the Death Note. Unless she decides to return it to me, its original owner, I'm going to be sticking around."

And there's no way of convincing her to do that, I thought, gloomily, as I flipped over a few pieces on the board, only to have Ryuk take three more of mine immediately. I could trick her into giving up the Death Note, I suppose; it might not be too hard. But again, since she already knows about supernatural things, that would just make her angrier. And besides, that could lead to even more trouble given that Haruhi would likely embark on a quest to try to find you again in order to get the Death Note back. Not that you'd mind, would you?

"I suppose not. But she wouldn't be able to do that," he said, countering another of my moves.

I looked more closely at the patterns that had been established on the Othello board. I was beginning to see a way that I could win.

"If she gives up the Death Note, she will lose all memories associated with it. She will forget that I ever existed."

I stopped suddenly, my hand hovering dead still over the board. She will forget that you ever existed. There were many things that ran through my head for a brief moment, but I said nothing and simply made a move.

"That was interesting," Ryuk said, looking at the board game. "You appear to be winning again."

Indeed. What's this about memory loss?

"As I said, if she decides to return the Death Note to me, she will forget that it ever existed. It's almost too good to be true for you, isn't it? Just the solution you've been waiting for, in a way."

It is too good to be true.

It really is, in fact. This brings us back to 'square one', so to speak; the only way for the Death Note to leave Haruhi's possession, other than the event of her death, is for her to give it up voluntarily, and I know very well that that is impossible.

"Really? You seem very certain about that."

It was interesting that Ryuk's long, clawlike fingers looked so awkward but were so adept at manipulating the slippery little Othello pieces. Not that it was going to do him any good. I could see what his strategy was now. Oh, I've been playing with that amateur Koizumi for too long, but I'm remembering how to play a high-class board game now.

"You seem to still be unaware of the impact that you have had on Haruhi. She craves contact with strange beings. In a way it is what she lives for. For Haruhi Suzumiya, the saddest thing in the world is feeling that she is not special; now that she has a god of death for company, all her dreams have come true. There's no way she'd give that up."

"Do you really believe that she cares about me so much? I've not been here long."

How annoying that you should ask that question. And also get in the way of my Othello strategies. I should have asked you to play chess instead.

"What is chess?"

"Another board game. It's a little like Othello." I sighed. "Haruhi is obsessed with you. She's been interested in little else ever since she met you. The… well, the things that she used to care about… are less important." Damn it, I don't think I want to talk about this.

"She did seem very excited the first time I revealed myself to her. I think she said that the most exciting thing was that I had chosen her, although I don't remember her exact words. I was in something of a shock at the time. I hadn't expected a human to be so enthusiastic about meeting a god of death."

Enthusiastic is right.

"She's a very odd girl, though. I don't think she's has as strong an attachment to me as you think."

The way this conversation is going just makes me want to sigh. You can say that, and I want to believe it, but I don't. All of Haruhi's behaviour points to her being completely fascinated with you, and having very little interest in the rest of us. She would follow you to the ends of the Earth right now.

"Perhaps," Ryuk said, "But I think you would be surprised. Humans, I have discovered, are much less predictable beings than many believe – and so, for that matter, are gods of death."

What exactly does that mean? It certainly doesn't mean that you can make surprise attacks at board games, because I saw exactly what you were trying to do there and I blocked it two moves ago.

"So you did," he seemed oddly pleased. I haven't walked into a trap, have I? "But I was referring to the tendency some gods of death have shown for falling in love with humans."

No.

No, that can't happen. I was more or less joking when I suggested that Haruhi had fallen in love with Ryuk, but I didn't think it possible for that love to be returned. I thought that this would just be another crazy Haruhi pipe dream. But that would be… no… I can't imagine this. I can't think about… I can't let this happen.

"It's your move, Kyon."

I just stared at him. If this is a cheap trick to distract me from the game so that I make a bad move, it's working.

"Wow, you look really shocked. You don't really believe that I am the kind of shinigami who falls in love, do you?"

That was a bastard of a trick to play on me. Don't be such an asshole, Ryuk! At least, that's what I thought to myself. He really deserves to be yelled at for that, but I'm not sure I want to insult a god of death, so I swallowed my anger and finally moved a piece.

"As I was saying, there have been several gods of death that were known to have fallen in love with humans. But it is an unusual occurrence, and I must confess that I believe I am incapable of falling in love myself. I think I may be quite a disappointment to Haruhi in that regard. Nice move, by the way."

Well, I try. You're still better than I expected, Ryuk. I could still lose this game, I suppose.

"I know you think Haruhi is obsessed with me, and I suppose you're right. She does seem to think that I'm the most wonderful thing she's ever seen. But I think she is disappointed by me also. I seem unable to fulfil the expectations she has of a good friend. Usually when she comes to me to talk, and when she is most passionate…"

With one sweep I took out half of his remaining pieces. I could have sworn I heard Nagato mutter something like 'vicious', but when I whipped my head up to look over to her corner, her head was bent over the book she was reading and she didn't appear to have been paying attention to the game at all.

"… she seems to want my company the most when she has just been with you, Kyon."

What exactly do you mean when you say she has 'been with' me?

"Well, maybe I am wrong in that regard. But I think that talking to you makes her angry. You may think – and I do as well – that Haruhi is interested in me because I am a god of death. I suppose it is also because I find interesting the same kinds of things that she does. But most of the time, when she comes looking for me and seems to most desperately need to talk, it is not because of some occult event that she has discovered, but because she wants to talk about you."

We were silent for a few moments before he added, "I believe you have won."

"That's right. Would you like to play another game? Chess, perhaps?"

"No thank you. Perhaps next week."

I started packing up the Othello board.

"Should I not have brought this topic up?"

I looked up at Ryuk. It was hard to read a god of death. His appearance never changed, with that constant grin on his face. It's impossible to tell when he's lying and when he's telling the truth, like when he talked about gods of death falling in love. But after months of trying to decipher Nagato's thoughts without her talking to me, I know something about emotions. Ryuk was confident. He knew there was nothing I could do to get rid of him.

But I may as well hear what he has to say. "Go on, then."

He stood up – the chair he had been sitting on was much too small for him, but he seemed comfortable – and gazed out the window. "You seem to think that Haruhi has lost interest in all her old friends and now only cares about me. You may think that, and she may think that, but to me it does not appear to be true. I do not understand love. I don't believe I am able to understand it. But from the things Haruhi says when she most wants to spend time with me, it would appear that what she wants from me is what she used to want from you."

What exactly are you implying there, Ryuk?

He grinned straight at me, and it was a struggle not to shiver under that gaze. "As I have said, I do not understand 'love'. Some gods of death do, but as far as I am concerned that is unnatural; it is a human emotion. Perhaps that is why it is easier for Haruhi to look for something from me than find the courage to ask it from other humans. But I am afraid I have disappointed her, and I continue to disappoint her. She comes to me when she is frustrated with you, and then she becomes frustrated with me, too."

And then?

"And then," he said, with a definitely creepy ripple of laughter lying just below the surface of his voice, "She writes about it in her diary, like you suggested."

Ryuk doesn't really care about Haruhi. He doesn't care that she's unhappy. And though I think he's wrong, he genuinely doesn't think Haruhi cares about him. Yet Haruhi having the Death Note makes him happy. 'Haunting' her makes him happy, and he doesn't think any of us can put a stop to it. There's not a trace of the angry, frustrated being, disillusioned with his world and his people, that he had been when we first met. So what is it that he wants from her?

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Why?" Ryuk laughed. "You know that what I like most are things that are interesting. Haruhi thinks that interesting things are ones that are unnatural. I agree in part. Those things are somewhat interesting, and I think what really endears me to her is that I am far more interested in those things than you are. But there is one thing that is far, far more interesting than any of the supernatural things that Haruhi loves."

Oh? And what might that be?

"Humans," Ryuk replied. "There is nothing in this world so interesting as human beings." Ryuk leaned so close to me then that I could smell him. I expected him to smell of leather, or blood, just judging by his appearance. Or perhaps even a slight smell of rotting flesh. But there was only the faintest smell of apples, and something else, just a whiff, that reminded me of Haruhi. "The most interesting thing is seeing what a super-ordinary human like Kyon will do to get what he wants."

"Ryuk?"

"Yes?"

"You seem happy."

He didn't respond to that. He just stared. Then, for the second time in as many weeks, Yuki surprised me by being the first to break the silence.

"Kyon?"

"Yes?"

"You need to do something about it. I think it's going to hatch soon."

"What?" I blinked at her – I'd gotten used to not talking to anyone over the last week, much less Nagato. "What are you talking about?"

She inclined her head towards the cupboard. "I thought you were aware of it. I must have been mistaken."

"Not everyone is as aware of their surroundings and their data as you are, Nagato," I said, smiling in spite myself.

She said nothing in response to that, but nodded towards a cupboard again. I placed my hand on the handle and looked back at her. "This one?"

She nodded again, and I pulled the door open to find the biggest egg I had ever seen nestled on the floor, cushioned by some of the costumes that Asahina-san didn't wear very often any more. Its shell was a light brownish colour, tinted with mottled blues and greens, and when I put a hand to it, it felt warm under my hand. Whatever was in this egg, it was definitely alive.

"You say it's going to hatch soon?" I said, trying to stay calm. Damn! Why did this have to happen right now? And right here? What the hell was I going to do with it? "What do you think it is, Nagato?"

"I can't say for sure," she said, "But given that it was most likely created by Suzumiya-san's wishes, we can assume that it is a creature that is unusual and that one would not expect to find in nature. Judging by the size and the fact that it is an egg, we can assume that it may be something along the lines of a dragon."

A dragon.

Oh, Haruhi, are you trying to drive me to an early grave? What are we going to do with a dragon? Is there anyone out there who has raised a dragon before and has any advice? Like maybe how to keep it hidden, and how to stop it from eating us all?

As I watched, horrified, the egg began to twitch, and then rock more violently. Oh, no. It can't be hatching right now. It's almost the weekend. And I was planning to spend my weekend in bed with my head under the covers or trying to study. With the windows and doors closed, the TV off and the phone disconnected so that I could at least have two days without worrying about what supernatural madness was going on in the world. I did not want to spend my entire weekend taking care of a baby dragon!

And with her usual impeccable timing, I heard Haruhi raving and stomping outside just as a crack appeared in the egg. Fantastic. Just fantastic. I slammed the cupboard door shut again and leaned my back against it, hard – and just in time. Before I could do anything else, the two of them were back in the room and Haruhi was stomping about again, complaining about what idiots were running the school and how stupid they were not to elevate the SOS Brigade to a position of high officialdom.

 

There's a dragon hatching in the clubroom cupboard and I'm trying to placate Haruhi after the school council told her she couldn't run an official ghost squad. I can't believe I've come to think of this as a normal afternoon.

"So they weren't convinced that anyone was needed to take care of the ghosts? Or have they already booked the Ghostbusters to take care of that?" Sometimes I wonder why I humour her silly plans like this. Maybe I should just tell her that they're bad ideas from the start.

"No, worse! Those morons wouldn't even believe that the ghosts existed!"

Actually, that didn't surprise me so much. Humans, especially adult humans, will do their best to find explanations for things that don't make sense to them. When they can't find explanations, or they don't like them, it's easier to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. I certainly didn't believe in any of the things that happened in the SOS Brigade at first. I told myself that these things weren't really happening – for example, that Nagato was just an odd, shy girl who had read too many science fiction books and now thought that she was an alien. And even the most astounding thing that happened to me early on, being transported to an alternate world that Haruhi created, was almost too easy to explain away as just a dream. If it took a long time for me to accept that it is possible for these things to exist, why should I expect any better from the boring old adults who run this school?

"It's just stupid!" Haruhi raged on. "I could understand if they'd said 'we don't want students involved' or 'we want to get rid of the ghosts, not talk to them' but how can they deny that the ghosts exist? Almost everyone's seen them!"

This was pretty true, actually. Most of the students in the school had had at least some contact with the ghosts, and if they hadn't then they had heard a lot about them. It was hard to believe that the teachers couldn't see them at all – unless it was simply that they didn't want to. I tried to avoid the ghosts as much as possible myself, but that was a different reason – after someone said that they looked like Asakura Ryoko, I couldn't quite convince myself that they were harmless any more.

But the ghosts aren't actually doing any harm, even if they are a little disturbing to me personally. Why would the school want to assign someone to take care of them if they're not even a problem?

"Who said anything about getting rid of them or them being a problem? They're fantastic!" Of course Haruhi would say that. I was distracted for a moment as I heard another cracking sound from inside the cupboard, but fortunately for me, Haruhi was talking so much that she didn't notice. If there were a single moment of silence, though, and she happened to hear… but naturally, being Haruhi, she just kept going. "The reason we need to have someone to communicate the ghosts is because we should all learn more about them, and maybe we can even help them. After all, everyone knows that people only become ghosts when they die if they have unfinished business in this world and so they can't move onto the next life."

Everyone knows that, huh?

Suddenly I felt, rather than heard, a scratching noise on the inside of the cupboard door. Oh, no. Don't tell me the damn thing's hatched already. I opened my mouth to start talking again before Haruhi could hear anything, but she overrode me with a violent "OUT!"

Excuse me?

"We need to change! Get out of the room!" she shouted, throwing her hat at me. Damn you, Haruhi, becoming modest at a time like this? But really, they were going to have to get changed at some point – even Haruhi wouldn't honestly want to walk home dressed as a policewoman. So with a last, desperate look towards Nagato, I bolted for the door and stood in the corridor with Ryuk, fretting.

"Same old routine, eh?" he said, with a grin, but I was not interesting in talking with him at this point. I paced up and down the corridor, thinking that at any moment that damn baby dragon could come crawling out of the cupboard and all hell would break loose.

Everything was silent, though, and I wondered whether Nagato had grasped the meaning of that look I'd given her and made sure the door would stay shut. Even so, she probably should have thought of that herself, since she doesn't want Haruhi to find out about it. Wasn't she supposed to stop altering things, though? Was sealing the cupboard acceptable to the Integrated Data Thought Entity? Or had Nagato decided that I was in charge and my orders could override anything else? I never wanted to be anyone's boss! Although it would be useful if Asahina-san were as compliant as that.

Aside from this, though, what could we really do to control the damage? Right now I was just living from day to day, trying to deal with things as they came up – it's what all of us were doing. But it was wearing us out as it is, so that we're becoming even less able to plan ahead, especially since we're so divided. Koizumi spends so much of his time in sealed realities fighting avatars that he's rarely around any more, Nagato doesn't seem to know what she's supposed to be doing and Asahina is still refusing to co-operate, even if she does it as nicely as is humanly possible. And now Ryuk doesn't even want to co-operate any more. It's hard to get the SOS Brigade to work on this problem when we're not even together.

But if being separated is the problem, then perhaps I should start by just trying to work with Haruhi. After all, she is the reason that we've become so separated. And she's the reason that these events are occurring at all. Surely if I were to talk to her it could have some positive effect? Thinking about what Ryuk said, it seems she's confused, although I don't completely understand all the things that he implied. I don't know whether I could convince her to give up the Death Note. In fact, it seems highly unlikely. But maybe if I could talk to her I could make her see what's happening to the SOS Brigade, and make her come back…

Before I could think any further along those lines, the door had flown open again and Haruhi was striding out without a word or a backwards glance.

"Haruhi…" I wasn't sure how to begin this, but I had to say something. "Where are you going?"

"Home, of course. Don't be an idiot."

"But what about the Brigade meeting? We've barely even started."

"Well, I've had enough. There's nothing else to do here today and I'm fed up with all this anyway. I'm just going to go home and have fun with Ryuk."

"You're never around any more."

She looked at me curiously. Damn, that was a stupid thing to say. But it was a start, perhaps.

"Are you giving up on the SOS Brigade? We hardly do anything any more – you're our Chief, but you spend all your time with Ryuk."

"Well, he's a member of the SOS Brigade."

No he's not. He's not a student, and we haven't registered him.

"Shut up. He's still a member. I'm the chief, after all, and I say he's a Brigade member, so he is."

Okay, so he is a member. But what about the rest of us? We don't do anything any more. Are you and Ryuk all there is to the SOS Brigade now?

"It's too hard to plan club events when my assistant chief doesn't even come to meetings!"

The only reason he hasn't been at meetings is because he spends all his time cleaning up the mess that you make. "Maybe you should demote him, then. You could make me assistant chief instead."

"You can't be assistant chief. I need you to be my minion."

Oh, hell, I don't know how to turn this conversation into something helpful. I can't make Haruhi give up the Death Note – I can't even make her see what she's doing to us. All I'm doing is complaining about how frustrating all this is for me.

"But the club isn't working any more," I went on, desperately. "Things aren't going the way they should… we're not the SOS Brigade any more, we're turning into just a bunch of people…"

"Maybe I don't need the SOS Brigade any more," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "The whole purpose of the SOS Brigade was to find aliens and things, and now we've found someone, so does it really matter any more?"

Of course it matters! How can you say that? The SOS Brigade was yours, you invented it, and now you're keeping Ryuk all to yourself and just letting it die. Don't you see that I care about it, too?

"What do you want from me?" she shouted, suddenly. Her hands were balled into fists and the look on her face was something I'd never seen from Haruhi before. She looked confused and frustrated and… desperate, I think.

I didn't know what to say. I don't think anyone who knew Haruhi would know what to say when she behaved in such an unexpected manner.

"I don't know what you want! I made the SOS Brigade to find exciting things like this, but you always complained." Wait, you really did listen to me? Maybe I should complain more often. "And now that exciting stuff is really happening you want the SOS Brigade to be together. But you don't even care what's going on around you. You don't care that you're seeing things that nobody's ever seen before, and you don't care that you're…"

She had walked up to me by now and grabbed the lapels of my blazer, dragging me down so that she could shout in my face. But suddenly, she seemed to run out of things to say. She let go, suddenly, and I stumbled slightly at being released so quickly. Her head was drooping now, and she stared only at the floor.

"I don't get it," she said, at last, and then turned away without even looking at me. "I'm going with Ryuk now. At least he understands."

For someone who had found someone so special and exciting as Ryuk, Haruhi didn't seem very happy. I had a feeling that maybe I should have said something to her right then, but I didn't know what to say. So I just stood and watched as she walked away, hoping that she would come back or turn to look at me. She didn't. She held Ryuk's hand as she walked along, but I had a feeling that didn't make her feel any better.

 

When I finally opened the door to back into the club room, I almost slammed it into Asahina-san's shoulder; she'd been standing just a little too close to the door. Although she had her back to the door when I went in, I suspected that she'd been listening to my conversation with Haruhi. She muttered something but I'm afraid that right then I wasn't really interested in idle talk, even with the beautiful Asahina-san. Instead, I turned my attention to Nagato, and to this little problem of the baby dragon under our noses.

Yes, I was bothered by what Haruhi had said, but I am capable of paying attention to more than one thing at a time, and right now the dragon problem was much more urgent.

"Is Haruhi aware of the… that thing?"

Nagato shook her head.

"She doesn't suspect anything?"

"When you left I sealed the door and altered its composition to make it soundproof. Suzumiya-san would only have realised that something was odd if she had tried to open it."

Which she didn't, I presumed. Can I open it now?

"Yes. I will remove the seal."

"What are you talking about?" Asahina-san interrupted, looking timid. She was back in her school uniform now, but she seemed uncomfortable.

There is an egg in the cupboard, Asahina-san. That's about all there is to say, really.

"An egg?" she looked puzzled. "But I don't keep any eggs in this room, and there's no food in the cupboard."

Ah, I see. No, not that kind of egg. This is a big one. And it's going to hatch.

"A baby animal?" Asahina-san looked excited at the idea. "How cute!"

And before either of us could stop her, Asahina-san knelt in front of the cupboard door and pulled it open, and a glistening, reptilian body almost a metre long from nose to tail tumbled out and into her arms. It looked up at her and made a noise which was something like the squawk of a baby bird or the whine of a hungry dog. It was a dark green, almost black; its snout and tail were quite stubby, as were its limbs, and its claws, while they looked sharp, seemed to be quite soft. To my surprise, Asahina stroked it along its head and neck, even though it was still covered in the sticky fluids from inside the egg, and there were several bits of shell still stuck to it, which she began picking off. When I looked closer I saw that it had two small wings on its sides, but they were thin and membranous and seemed to be stuck down by the slick fluid that covered it.

"It's so soft," Asahina-san murmured, stroking the scales on its neck again as it butted its head against her hand affectionately. Then it squawked again, plaintively, and I realised that it wanted food.

"Of course!" Asahina-san said. "But what do dragons eat?"

Meat, I suppose. But where are we going to find any meat for it around here? I suppose I have cat food for Shamisen at home, but I can't take a dragon home! I have a mother and a sister there! Not to mention that Shamisen probably wouldn't like it at all…

I heard the grating sound of metal scraping against metal and looked up to see Nagato with an open can of cat food in her outstretched hand. She knelt next to Asahina, offering to the tiny dragon, and with a pleased sound it set upon it, gobbling away. Do you always carry cat food around with you for emergencies, Nagato?

She didn't respond, and I wondered how long the egg had been here for. Had she been preparing for its hatching for some time?

Never mind that, we have to work out what to do with this thing. How are we going to get rid of it?

"Get rid of it?"

Suddenly both girls were staring at me with varying degrees of outrage on their faces. Well, Nagato, it was you who said we should try 'damage control' and keep strange things like this away from Haruhi, wasn't it?

"That does not necessitate its destruction," Nagato said, firmly.

How are we going to keep it, though? That thing is going to need a lot of food, and I'm sure it's going to get really big! We can't take care of it forever!

"You don't have to worry about taking care of it, Kyon," Asahina-san said. "You already have Shamisen. I'll take care of the dragon."

That's very considerate of you, Asahina-san, but that's not exactly what I meant. It's going to get too big to keep in an apartment, you know.

"But by then it'll be old enough to take care of itself, so we can let it go, right? And it can go out into the wild and find other dragons."

But… but we don't even know if there are any other dragons or whether this is just a creation of Haruhi's! And it'll cost a lot to keep, and it could cause a lot of damages. Maybe Nagato can explain this better than I can. She's always articulate, logical, and to the point.

"Asahina-san is being reasonable. There is no need to dispose of the creature. I suppose I am not human and am not expected to understand such things, but it would be cruel to abandon such a helpless being."

What is it with girls and babies?

Having finished the cat meat Nagato had been feeding it, the dragon nuzzled her hand affectionately before curling up against Asahina-san again and falling asleep.

"It seems it would be best for Asahina-san to house the creature," Nagato said, tonelessly. Did Nagato want to take the dragon herself?

Asahina-san seemed to think so. "I suppose so. He seems to be like a bird who thinks the first thing he sees is his mother. But you can come over and see him any time you want to, Nagato-san! I'm sure he loves you too since you gave him his first food!"

Nagato nodded. "In that case, I shall continue to provide food." Tentatively, she reached out to stroke the soft baby scales and I could have sworn that her face softened a little then, too.

And so it was settled. The little dragon had chosen two mothers for itself, and the two of them talked about what to name it as we walked back to Asahina's apartment, while I carried the great lump wrapped up in Asahina's maid apron. Why is it always me? That thing was really heavy!

"What do you think, Kyon?" Asahina-san asked me. I hadn't been listening to their conversation in the slightest, as I had begun to dwell on Haruhi's parting words that afternoon, so I had no idea what she was asking my opinion.

"What to name him, of course!"

Oh, are you still talking about names? And when did you decide that it was a boy?

"I don't know, he just seems like a boy," she replied, and Nagato gave a slight nod in agreement. Good grief. "So what should we call him?"

I didn't know what to say. I had no idea what was an appropriate name for a dragon, and my mind was firmly on other things at the time. It shouldn't really have been such a surprise that the word 'Shinigami' popped out.

"God of death? Like Ryuk?" she frowned in thought. Well, I didn't think 'Ryuk' would be a very good name for a dragon – although it might be a useful code if you want to talk about him without Haruhi being suspicious!

But now the two girls were flanking me, and both looking at me curiously. "You're bothered by Ryuk, aren't you, Kyon?" Asahina asked, carefully.

Well, yes, but he's a pretty disturbing guy! Who wouldn't be bothered by Ryuk?

She shook her head slightly, as though I was missing the point, and then looked across at Nagato, who ignored her. Asahina has always been scared of Nagato, I think, which is understandable – and Asahina hadn't even seen half the things I had, like when Nagato fought Asakura. It looks as though even when they are getting along, Asahina still defers to her. At any rate, Nagato was ignoring her in this instance, which she seemed to take as permission to speak.

"Kyon-kun…" she said, in that angelically timid voice, "Kyon-kun seems… hmmm… seems to be the one who's most upset by Ryuk's coming here."

I'd talk to Koizumi before you start making assumptions about who is the most upset. He's the one being run ragged trying to clean up all the closed space that she's creating.

Asahina looked at me with surprise when I said that. "Suzumiya-san is still creating closed space? This is unexpected. Nagato-san, did you know about this?"

Nagato said nothing, just staring straight ahead. Asahina-san had just opened her mouth and drawn in a breath to speak when Nagato finally interrupted her. "Closed space is not my concern."

"Ah… yes, I see…" she agreed, faltering and falling silence. After a few more paces she said "But shouldn't we be concerned? Even if such things are Itsuki-san's role rather than ours, the creation of closed space is significant in relation to Suzumiya-san's mood, so… shouldn't we be concerned with its meaning?"

Closed space isn't all that meaningful. It means that Haruhi's dissatisfied, but that could mean everything. She's not a subtle person. Haruhi is the kind of person who will use a steamroller to kill a fly. If she were a doctor, she'd rather amputate limbs that fix broken bones.

"Ah, I see, perhaps that is the case," Asahina-san agreed. "But… but I would have thought, since Suzumiya-san is getting the things that she wanted, she would be more satisfied than ever. She has Ryuk, and all these other things have been happening…"

That's what I thought, too, but it doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not sure whether I should be grateful for this or not. If Haruhi is unhappy it is possible that the world will become more dangerous, or that more dangerous events will begin to occur. Even if that is not the outcome, life is still difficult for Koizumi at the moment. And yet, after my conversation with Ryuk this afternoon, I must wonder whether it may in fact be to my advantage. I have been worried about Haruhi… well, being too interested in Ryuk, and forgetting about the rest of us, but perhaps if she is still unsatisfied then she realises that Ryuk is not such good company. And yet even if she gets tired of Ryuk's companionship, I know she'll never give up the Death Note. Nothing in this universe could make Haruhi choose an ordinary life.

I realised that I was smiling, and that Asahina-san was watching me with great curiosity. She seemed almost worried. Hey, cheer up, Asahina-san. How could I have been worrying about Haruhi when Asahina-san is worried too, and right beside me? My first duty should always be to protect this angel.

"What exactly does Kyon-kun think of the situation right now?"

"Haruhi is probably dissatisfied that events are not occurring in the way that she wants them to. She created that event with the vegetation taking over the school, but then Nagato undid it all, which must have been frustrating for her. There are many other strange things going on in the world, but most of them are happening far away, in other countries, and not right here. Even now, we're hiding this dragon from her. In a way it may be even more frustrating than nothing interesting happening to her at all."

Asahina-san looked relieved. For a brief moment, I remembered Koizumi's warning to me about this girl; that she was lulling me into a false sense of security with her beauty and charm, that she wasn't all that innocent or powerless, that she was using me and he just didn't know what for.

But when she looked up at me in all sincerity, and asked what I thought she should do about Haruhi if this was the case, there was no way that I could doubt her intentions. Nagato did look at her oddly, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. Nagato is always curious and their friendship, if you can call it that, has always been somewhat tense.

After that little exchange, the conversation veered back towards names for the dragon, not that the girls ever managed to agree on anything. Asahina-san wanted to name it something cute, but Nagato-san's suggestions were all strange names that she probably got from science fiction novels. But at least the conversation was fairly light until we got to Asahina-san's apartment building. After a brief discussion the girls decided that they would both go to the apartment to help their little dragon to 'settle in', and then I handed the little bundle, still asleep, over to Nagato.

I decided to leave then. As exciting as it was to think of visiting Asahina-san's apartment, I didn't really want to spend my entire evening taking care of that irritating little monster and worrying about how we were going to keep it a secret, and what on earth was going to happen when Haruhi found out, as I was sure she would. Not long ago I would have assumed that it would be almost impossible for Haruhi to find out about any strange things going on in the area, but now I assumed that it was inevitable. If Asahina-san and Nagato-san wanted to take responsibility for this particular problem, it was absolutely fine with me. The less responsibility I had, the better. I said a quick goodbye and turned to walk away. I couldn't get away from there quickly enough.

Before I had walked too far from the apartment building, through, I heard the soft fall of footsteps behind me and felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Asahina-san standing behind me, staring at her feet. Nagato was still standing at the door of the apartment building, holding the sleeping dragon and staring towards us. What is it now, Asahina?

"Um… Kyon-kun…" she said, at last. "What I really meant when I said that you were bothered by Ryuk is… um… Haruhi isn't really around much any more… and she… it's because she spends all her time with Ryuk. So I wondered… does Kyon-kun…"

It was hard to see what her face looked like, as it was growing dark and she wouldn't raise her head, but if I wasn't mistaken, I believe she was blushing.

"Kyon-kun seems tired and sad lately, too, just like Itsuki-kun, even though Kyon-kun hasn't been fighting the closed space like the espers… and I started to think… does Kyon-kun miss Suzumiya-san? Is that what this is?"

What an interesting question.

I think Asahina-san finally raised her head to look at me at that point, but I was no longer looking at her and stared up at the sky instead. Did I miss Haruhi? I had a feeling that perhaps this was an important question. But what difference did it really make? To tell you the truth, I was sick of thinking about it. I have had far too many conversations about Haruhi today, and I really just want to go home and stop thinking about her.

"The truth is…"

The only truth is that I don't really know what I think. It makes me sad that the SOS Brigade is falling apart and that Haruhi has abandoned us for Ryuk, and it does make me a little sad to think that maybe I'm not 'the one chosen by Suzumiya-san' any more. But then, I always hated being that person, and I hated being responsible for Haruhi's mood and keeping her under control. If it means that I can some day free myself from that responsibility…

But do I miss Haruhi?

"The truth is, Asahina-san," I said to her, at last, "I don't really care. Haruhi can do whatever she wants with whoever she wants right now. I just want to rest."

I think she was smiling at me. Who would have thought that that would be the right answer?

"I'm glad, Kyon-kun," she said, warmly, and to my surprise, she hugged me. Then she jumped back almost immediately, and now I was sure she was blushing. "I'm sorry! I'm not supposed to do that! Er… I mean, if Suzumiya-san isn't here it doesn't matter so much, but… um… what I'm trying to say is, it's good if Kyon-kun is happy."

She bowed to me in a very formal goodbye, and then ran back to the apartment building where Nagato was waiting for her. I watched them for a while; they stood there for a few moments before they finally decided to enter the building. I wasn't sure whether they were talking or not; it looked more like they were having a staring contest. I had a feeling that perhaps, for whatever reason, Asahina-san had decided that maybe it was finally time to stop being afraid of Nagato and look her defiantly in the eye.

Ah, but I can't be bothered trying to work out whatever power games the time travellers and the aliens are playing. It's bad enough trying to keep track of everything else that goes on here. I stretched my arms and turned around to head home, determined to have a good night's sleep. I just hope Haruhi doesn't interrupt my dreams again – often they're the only peace I get.


	5. Chapter 5

A person is never truly alone, which is both a gift and a burden.  We have others to support us, but we cannot be truly free, as we cannot simply act as we wish.  That is, we are all members of society, and we must be considerate of the fact that everything we do has an effect on our families and neighbours.  I can never make a truly ‘free’ decision, based only on my own desires and circumstances, because I must consider what effect my decision will have on my family; they are a constraint.  What I am trying to say is that in Japan, there is no such thing as privacy.

 

This is true nowhere as severely as it is in school.  Or so I believe.  There cannot be a place more restrictive, or more watchful!  Nowhere else are people forced to adhere to such strict uniform regulations, or to do anything at all at the whim of a teacher!  Nowhere else is a person forced to spend many hours standing in the summer sun, for no reason other than it is the day of the sports festival and we must ‘fight’ to help our class to win!

 

Ugh, I shudder just remembering that day.  I did not compete in many sports events – I don’t have the enthusiasm to run around in a circle repeatedly to help my class to ‘win’ such a meaningless event.  What a waste.  But I suffered and sweated nonetheless as I spent the entire day standing in the sun being forced to cheer for those who were running.  Do the teachers really believe that suffering in the sun is community-spirited and will contribute to the success of my class?  As if becoming extremely thirsty and almost fainting from dehydration is in the best interests of my neighbours!  And besides, I got the worst sunburn I’ve ever had in my life!  And Haruhi got far too much pleasure out of peeling strips of burnt skin off my arms and neck.  Often after I had specifically asked her not to.  Why didn’t she get sunburnt?  Ah, of course, because it is her will.  Does that mean it was also her will that I should get sunburnt?  That is a disturbing thought, but probably true because she takes so much joy in torturing me.  Ripping my skin off must have been terribly exciting for her.  Now how does that make either of us better citizens, Okabe-sensei?

 

What I am trying to say is that a school is an environment in which the belief that the individual is less important than the community that he or she serves is taken to its extreme.  In other words, we have no privacy and little room for free will as we are forced into groups – classes and clubs which are made to compete against each other at regular intervals – which are then heavily policed by the teachers who make it their job to do their best to control us.  It is thus very difficult for one to keep a secret, or to communicate a secret, in a high school environment.  Everything one does is seen by teachers or students, and very quickly becomes the topic of gossip as we are all so bored that there is simply nothing else to talk about!

 

However, the students of North High and, I imagine, high schools all over Japan, have devised an ingenious method of communicating in secret, away from the surveillant gaze of teachers and students – the leaving of a note in a student’s shoe-locker.  Mysteriously and conveniently, there are rarely more than a few students in the vicinity of the shoe-lockers at any one time, and so it is a convenient place for a student to leave a note to another student without being seen, and for the recipient to read a note in private.

 

Sometimes I wonder whether this is too good to be true.  Perhaps it is a conspiracy devised by the teachers in order to lull us into a false sense of security so that they might make the shoe-lockers the area under the highest surveillance and so uncover our deepest secrets.  Or perhaps it may even be Haruhi’s doing.  See how quickly I attribute the slightest mystery to Haruhi’s desire now?  But it would make sense for Haruhi, with her constant desire for drama and mystery, to create a situation in which it was easy for people to get notes to each other that could create such drama.  However, if this was Haruhi’s doing, I fear she was or would be disappointed by its results.  Most of the notes found in lockers, I am sure, are to do with love, a topic which is notoriously dull to her.  Of course, my experiences have been slightly different; all the notes in my locker have been from Haruhi’s mysterious people like the one that was a trap set by Asakura Ryoko.  But it seems most secrets that high school students keep are related to the topic of romance, so it stands to reason that many of the notes passed in this way are related to such a topic.

 

At least, this is very much what I hoped when I arrived at school on Monday and found a note neatly tucked into my slippers, which was signed by Asahina-san.

 

Alas, I do realise that the most likely answer is that Asahina-san needed to discuss with me a matter of some importance relating to Haruhi, as was the case last time she left a note for me in such a way, when I unexpectedly found myself confronted by Asahina-san’s older self.  Or perhaps Asahina-san wanted to discuss with me the development of our young dragon and how best to deal with it.  Who could say?  I did not particularly care.  While a love letter would be preferable, I am happy simply to have another beautiful letter from Asahina-san on such cute stationery, perfectly suited to her adorable personality!  She requested my presence in classroom five after school in order to discuss a matter of great importance.  I realised that I would have to stay at school until depressingly late, since our meeting would naturally have to wait until after club activities lest we arouse Haruhi’s suspicion, but it would be worth anything to have a pleasant private meeting with Asahina-san…

 

Haruhi scowled at me when I entered the classroom for the first class.  Damn it, Haruhi, you can’t stand to see me happy, can you?  What is it that’s made you so grumpy that you’re annoyed with me before I’ve even opened my mouth?

 

She ignored me as though I had not said a word, and I felt my high spirits and good intentions drain away almost immediately.  I’m not going to let you ruin my day with your moods, Haruhi!  And yet it was impossible not to be affected by her melancholy.  Maybe her yelling yesterday was not just another temper tantrum.  I hadn’t doubted before that she meant what she said, but perhaps Haruhi’s mood was now more severe than I had previously thought.

 

Haruhi ignored me throughout the school day.  For the most part, I ignored her, too, and tried to act as though I couldn’t see her gazing out the window at Ryuk, who was once again drifting about the school grounds, probably bored to death himself.

 

When it was lunch time, I turned to Haruhi to try to begin a conversation, but I barely had time to ask her whether anything interesting had happened to her on the weekend before she stood up, still continuing to ignore my presence, and walked out of the room.

 

“Jeez, Kyon,” Taniguchi said, coming over to lean on my desk, “What’d you do to get Haruhi so mad?  Although it could just be because Haruhi’s so crazy already.  I mean, if you’re that insane, I bet you don’t even need a reason to be angry, right?”

 

Kunikida merely shrugged at that, while Taniguchi launched into a lament of the fact that all the most beautiful girls in the school were completely crazy, except of course for Asakura-san, who had disappeared under such sudden and mysterious circumstances that she didn’t really count.

 

Kunikida looked at me sympathetically throughout this, as though to impart a shared understanding that Taniguchi was wearying, but I wasn’t even interested.  No matter how many times they both said that Haruhi was crazy – and they were right – it didn’t explain her behaviour.  Haruhi has been in a melancholy state so many times that I rarely bothered to count them, but rarely was she so hostile.  But I shouldn’t be interested in such things right now!  I should be focusing on my meeting with Asahina-san this afternoon in order to make the best possible use of such a valuable opportunity!

 

The latter part of the day was much the same as the first half.  Haruhi ignored me throughout – she ignored the teacher too.  I was not being the most attentive student at that point in time, either – at one point the teacher asked me a question and I was forced to admit that I was not even aware of what the topic of this particular lesson was.  At this point, while many of the other students in the class snickered at my ignorance, I thought I heard a grunt and a soft voice saying “Shut up, idiots, can’t you see…”

 

But when I turned around, Haruhi’s head was resting on her arms, turned towards the window, as though she had barely been paying attention and all her attention was on the world outside.

 

Finally, the end of the classes for the day arrived, and I thought that surely Haruhi must acknowledge me now, at the club meeting.  Yet before I could even rise from my seat, she was standing next to me and muttered, without looking at me, that the club meeting was cancelled for today.  But shouldn’t we be investigating the school ghosts even if the school did not want us to do so in an official capacity?

 

“I’ll do the investigation on my own,” she muttered.  “Just go home.”

 

And so it was left to _me_ to go to the club room after school and inform everyone else that the club meeting had been called off.  As it turned out, the only person who was there was Nagato, and she didn’t seem to want to leave.  Aren’t you as eager to get home as anyone else?

 

“I can read as easily here as I can at home.  In fact, there are more books here.”

 

Ah, well, I shouldn’t really complain.  Nagato, if you’re going to stay here, could you tell Asahina and Koizumi that the meeting has been called off if they show up here today?  That way I can go straight home instead of waiting here to tell everyone _else_ that they can go home.

 

Or rather, I can go straight to the classroom to wait for Asahina.

 

“I thought you’d like that.”

 

Did you say something, Nagato?

 

She didn’t answer that question.  Is she trying to do me a favour?  That’s not the sort of thing I really expect from Nagato.  Most of the time she seems completely oblivious to other people – to the things they do say, much less the things they don’t.

 

I picked up my bag again and turned to leave, aware that Koizumi and Asahina may not turn up at all today.  I felt a little guilty for leaving Nagato there waiting for people who may not turn up, but she did say that she wanted to stay there anyway.  And maybe it wasn’t just to read, even if she said that was what she was doing.  Who knew what kinds of data-collecting activity she may be engaging in?

 

“Be careful,” she said, just before I walked out the door.

 

Why do I have to be careful?

 

“Don’t do anything risky.  You are still the one chosen by Suzumiya-san.  We do not know what she would do if anything were to happen to you.  You cannot afford to take risks.”

 

I don’t know what you’re suggesting, Nagato, but I’ll be careful.  I definitely don’t want to go walking into danger, even if I don’t believe that I am as important as you say any more.  Is that why you’re staying here this afternoon?  Is something dangerous going to happen?

 

She was silent.  After a few moments she said, “His name is Hal.”

 

Haru who?  I don’t know a Haru.

 

“The dragon.  I suggested the name.  Asahina thought it was cute.”

 

Haru… wait, you didn’t name it after Haruhi, did you?

 

“Not Haru.  Hal.  The consonant doesn’t really exist in Japanese.”

 

“Ah.”

 

I paused, waiting to for her to explain, but Nagato had returned to her book and it seemed that no explanation was forthcoming.

 

“Well, I’d better go now.  I have an appointment to keep.”

 

She said nothing, but she kept her eyes on my as I walked out of the room and closed the door behind me.  I wondered whether she knew about the note.  It wouldn’t surprise me.  Is that why she was warning me to be careful and not take any risks?  But just because Asakura attacked me last time I was asked to meet someone in a classroom after school, doesn’t mean that all meetings arranged by notes are sinister.  After all, this one was from Asahina, and I wouldn’t mistake her handwriting.  It’s definitely real.

 

Nagato can’t possibly believe that Asahina could pose a threat to me, can she?  I don’t think so.  Not when they’re siding together against Koizumi about what to do about Ryuk, and both being mothers to Hal.  Not when they’ve just started to get along.

 

When I arrived at the classroom, it was already empty of students – but also empty of Asahina.  I sighed and sat down at one of the desks.  This was annoying, and it would look really weird if someone came in and found me sitting in a second year classroom.  Oh, well.  I don’t really know where else I could go to wait for her, and this was an interesting enough place.  I’d never been in this classroom before.  I looked around and wondered where Asahina’s seat was, but there was no way of knowing.  It did occur to me, though, that if Haruhi had been here, she would have been able to tell me.  It was Haruhi who found Asahina and dragged her into the SOS Brigade, and she had done it after finding Asahina sitting in this classroom, daydreaming.

 

It’s funny the way Haruhi made Asahina sound like such a vague, absent-minded, dreamy person.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen her daydreaming, especially not lately.  She’s much more focused and serious about her job as a time traveller.  I suppose the number of threats we’ve had to deal with lately, and the seriousness of Ryuk’s impact on our world, has meant that she has had to start growing up.

 

To tell you the truth, it makes me a little sad.

 

I had been staring out the window all this time, at the grey winter landscape that was already darkening with twilight even though it was still quite early in the evening.  And in doing so, I had fallen so deeply into my own thoughts that I didn’t even hear Asahina come into the room.  I only turned around and noticed her when she gave a little gasp of surprise and said “Ah, so you came!”

 

In the weak orange light of the setting sun, she looked simply radiant.

 

“Oh, um, have you been waiting long?  I’m sorry to have kept you, but I had to make sure that I could come here without anyone else finding out.  Tsuruya is very difficult to deter when you need privacy.”

 

Heh.  I can understand that.  But I haven’t been here long.

 

“Ah, I’m so glad!  I wouldn’t have wanted to waste your time.”

 

Then she clasped her hands in front of her and looked down at her shoes, bashfully.  If you don’t want to waste my time, then why did you call me here and then not say anything?

 

“So why is it that you called me here?  Is it about Ryuk?”

 

“Oh!”  She looked up in surprise as though she had forgotten all about it.  Maybe Haruhi was right and she’s more of a dreamer than I thought.  “Um, yes, I suppose you could say that.”

 

Should we sit down?

 

“No, there’s no need for that.  Er, maybe I should come closer, though.”

 

She was still standing in the doorway, and now she ran daintily and cutely through the maze of desks to stand directly in front of me.  She put her bag on the nearest desk and turned to look at me again.  For some reason, she seemed a little afraid.

 

Is this about Koizumi’s plan to eliminate Ryuk using time travel?  I thought you were opposed to that, but if you’ve had a change of heart, I wouldn’t complain.  It’s the best plan we have, in my opinion.

 

“Um, no, I’m sorry, I can’t agree with that.”  Asahina looked down at her feet again, as though she were ashamed, and then looked up at me again with a more determined expression.  “It simply cannot be done.  There are some rules I will not break and this is a timeline that I absolutely cannot interfere with.  You must forget about that plan!”

 

I guess I should put it aside if it’s so distressing to Asahina-san.  But if not that, what else are we going to do?  We all know by now that the situation is only going to get worse, and while Nagato’s kept us out of trouble so far, she can’t fix everything.  If time travel isn’t going to be possible, then do you have a better plan?

 

“No, I don’t have any ideas,” Asahina said, sadly.  “I’ve really been thinking for a long time about this, but I haven’t come up with any ways that we could resolve the current situation.  I’m afraid it seems hopeless to me.”

 

Wow.  That’s pretty grim for you, Asahina.  I always thought you were a hopeful person.

 

This must have surprised her, because she looked up at me with wide eyes.  “Really?  Why did you think that about me?”

 

“Well… you’re always smiling, for one thing… and… you are quite cheerful…”  But was she really?  Seeing Asahina always made me feel happy and hopeful, but I can’t assume from that that she is truly a hopeful person herself.  Perhaps I’m as superficial as Koizumi says.

 

What an idiot.  I’ve been ignoring the way she really felt all this time because I wanted to keep my image of her as a bright and happy person.  Can I really be so low?

 

Evidently, Asahina wasn’t concerned with my self-chastisement, as she continued talking without taking any notice of me.  “In this instance, I am not hopeful at all.  I believe that Haruhi will continue to become more and more absorbed with Ryuk and with other strange things that are going on rather than with the SOS Brigade.  It is no longer in anyone’s power to stop these paranormal events from occurring, and so they will escalate.  And as the SOS Brigade members are all normal humans to her, the things which she found interesting about us – such as my appearance and Itsuki’s mysterious air – will no longer seem interesting in comparison to other things.”  She looked up at me with a face that was more sympathetic than hopeless or despairing, but I didn’t want to think about what unknown reasons she might have for pitying me.

 

“Asahina… how can you just give up like this?”  I spread my arms wide, and oddly, she edged closer to me.  “What are you going to do in this situation, with the world becoming increasingly dangerous?  Or why don’t you reveal your true identity to Haruhi, at least, so that she stays interested in you?”

 

She shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I think the best thing to do in this situation is to make the best of what you have.  I’m not sure that Suzumiya-san’s current lack of interest in me is necessarily a bad thing.”  That was understandable.  If I were Asahina, I wouldn’t object to the sudden decrease in molestation at all.

 

At least, I don’t think I would.

 

“In fact,” said Asahina, with a shy look, “The truth is, I have no desire to alter the current course of events at all.”

 

What?  Why do you say that?  Are you referring to the possibility of finding out how Haruhi created a time-quake and what you can do to get past it?

 

“Ah, yes, there is that,” she admitted, “But there’s no guarantee that having Ryuk around will reveal the answer to that mystery.  The truth is that there are far more selfish reasons that the current events are playing out in ways that I do not wish to change.”

 

I feel strangely as though I’m reliving that encounter with Asakura.  Once more, I’m alone in a classroom with a girl, while the sun is setting and she spouts strange philosophical thoughts.  Only where Asakura’s talk was all about change, whether to make changes because of her dissatisfaction, Asahina was saying that she didn’t want change.  No matter how bad it got.

 

“Why do you say that?  I would have thought that the current state of events would disagree with you, especially after that unfortunate incident when you were actually attacked.  Or is it because of Hal that you want things to remain the way they are at present?”

 

“Oh, so Nagato told you about Hal?”  Asahina giggled to herself.  “It’s not the sort of name I would expect from Nagato, but I thought it was pretty cute.  I do want to keep Hal, but I don’t think Nagato and I will need to care for him for very long.  He is growing awfully fast.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he were big enough to fly away from us in just a few weeks.”

 

You never know.  He might stick around just because he likes you so much.

 

“Perhaps, but I’m not betting on it.  Hal is a wild animal, after all, and they tend not to like living with humans for too long.”

 

I wouldn’t know much about wild animals, myself.  I wonder what Asahina is basing that assessment on?  Has she tended to raise wild animals in the past?  Or does she just assume these things?  At any rate, that still doesn’t explain what we’re doing here!

 

“If it’s not because of Hal that you like the current situation, then what is it?”

 

She sighed, and lowered her eyes.  “The truth is that the current situation in the area of Suzumiya’s relationships – the fact that Ryuk now consumes most of Suzumiya’s energy – is something that I am very grateful for.”

 

She stepped towards me again.  As I had been leaning against the window during this entire conversation I had no option to move further away from her as she came towards me, but this is not something I particularly desired to do.  I was shocked, however, when she placed her hands on my shoulders.  Certainly, I was not unused to physical contact with Asahina, but that was usually only when she had been attacked in some way and needed comfort!  Asahina never initiated such a thing.  This should be a cause for concern?  Am I sure that this is the real Asahina and not another trap?

 

But how could I think that?  Have I really become so suspicious?  Stop that, Kyon.  You should be revelling in this sensation.  What are you complaining about?

 

“For many months now I have been restrained by Suzumiya’s affection for Kyon,” she continued, so close to me now that I could almost feel her breath on my face.  “Kyon’s status as ‘the person chosen by Suzumiya’ was a significant limitation on me.  There have been such a great number of things that I have been prevented from saying or doing in order to keep Suzumiya from becoming annoyed and prevent that thing from happening again.”

 

‘That thing’?

 

She looked away suddenly.  “When Suzumiya and Kyon were taken into that alternate dimension… the ‘new world’…”

 

Ah, yes, that.  Definitely an experience I do not wish to repeat.  Although I must admit that considering the direction that things are heading now, that option may soon appear to be attractive…

 

Asahina shook her head firmly at that.  “No, you mustn’t go back to that place!  But I don’t consider it to be a real risk.  In the past I have had to be careful of my actions so as to prevent that from happening, but now that Ryuk has all of Suzumiya’s attention I no longer consider it to be a problem.”

 

Why are you even bringing this up?  What are these constraints you’re talking about?  And how could Asahina have caused that thing to happen?  It’s Haruhi who creates closed space…

 

“Yes, whenever she is unhappy,” Asahina cocked her head to one side and looked as though I were a naïve child.  “You know that I have to avoid you, Kyon.”

 

“You something about going back to the other world, once.”  I shudder to think about going back to that place again.  “I figured it was one of those ‘classified information’ things.”

 

She shook her head.  “Haven’t you figured it out, Kyon?  It’s a simple matter of logic.  Haruhi makes closed space appear when she is unhappy.  Seeing us together could make you and her return to that place…”

 

“So seeing us together makes Haruhi unhappy?”

 

Well, Haruhi is weird.  She hates romance, and I guess she doesn’t like guys getting close to Asahina-san… although she doesn’t mind using you to get their attention like with that movie or the costumes…

 

Asahina was shaking her head and actually giggled.  “No, silly, you have it the wrong way around.  Suzumiya-san doesn’t like seeing _you_ with other girls.  _You’re_ the one that makes her jealous.”

 

Jealous?

 

She’s jealous of you, when you’re too close to me?

 

Do you mean that Haruhi loves me?

 

“If you wish, you could draw such a conclusion from the evidence we have.”

 

Haruhi loves me.

 

It makes sense, in a way.  It shouldn’t have been this much of a surprise.  I should be acting exasperated or really, really disturbed that a crazy person like Haruhi should have such an interest in me, especially if she tries to show her love by sending me to alternate dimensions where there are gigantic monsters made of light destroying everything and the two of us are the only humans on Earth. 

 

But all that happened was that the phrase seemed to echo in my mind.

 

Haruhi loves me.

 

What an idiot.

 

“Kyon,” said Asahina, firmly, and my attention focused suddenly back on her.  She placed a hand down on the window sill next to mine.  It’s a crazy thing to say, since Asahina is smaller than me, and such a timid person, but I felt as though she were trying to trap me.  “Kyon, since Haruhi is spending all her time with Ryuk now, and has little interest in the SOS Brigade, it is my opinion that you are no longer ‘the one chosen by Suzumiya’.”

 

I’ve been thinking that all along.  It should be a relief not to be her ‘chosen one’ any more, but the longer this goes on, the more it just starts to seem a little sad.

 

“That means I’m no longer constrained by her wishes,” Asahina said, looking at me oddly again.  “You’re not always very quick, are you, Kyon?”  And just to make her point even more clear, she used her other hand to stroke my face for a moment, and then slid it around to the back of my head, digging her fingers into my hair and drawing my face closer to hers.

 

I wish to make it absolutely clear at this point that I am not nearly as clueless as Asahina thinks I am.  At least, I had been imagining this scenario ever since I had found her note in my shoe locker this morning, and I had been hoping for such a scenario for much longer than that.  Yet I never truly expected that such a thing could happen.  As much as I wished for it, I believe I had been content just to spend time with Asahina, knowing that she would probably never do something like this.  I know she’s been acting more mature lately, but I never could have expected a scenario such as this to happen, with Asahina becoming so assertive.  And as much as I like Asahina’s mature self, as much as I have thought about this and wished for it to happen, the fact remains that now that I find myself in this situation, the whole thing feels a little…

 

… wrong.

 

“You’re not a slider who has taken over Asahina’s body, are you?”

 

“I am myself, Kyon,” she murmured, “Why would you think anything else?”

 

“It seems so unlike you.  You’ve always been so shy… and aren’t you forbidden from dating by your superiors?  And…”

 

“Please forget about those things,” she breathed into my ear, apologetically.  That in itself sent a shiver of electricity through me which was impossible to ignore.  “The truth is that I believe we are headed towards absolute chaos, and despite what Koizumi has suggested to you, I am powerless to stop it.  So the only reasonable action now is to try to enjoy as much pleasure as we can in the face of such uncertainty.  For that I am willing to go against my orders.”  She drew back a little so that she could look me in the eyes again.  My neck felt sore from being bent over like this, but I barely noticed it.  “I’m not going to give up the last chance I have to be happy.”

 

Are you sure… is this okay… is this really okay, Asahina?

 

“Call me Mikuru,” she said, finally, and there was no talking after that.

 

I had spent a long time imagining what this moment would feel like.

 

Mikuru was everything I could have imagined.  She tasted like strawberries and green tea, and she felt softer than I ever expected a human being could be.  Even though she had been so forceful before, everything she did was still gentle, full of the care that she showed in everything she did, from the way she smoothed my hair to the way she shifted the tip of her delicate tongue between her lips to the fingers sliding beneath my shirt.  Never forceful, never invasive.  Just gently asking ‘May I?’

 

I was suddenly very aware of everything around me.  Even though my eyes were closed, I could see in my mind exactly how the classroom looked, with the orange light of sunset fading out now and the blue darkness beginning.  The window sill under my hands seemed colder, harder, sharper than ever before; I shifted my weight and drew my arms around Mikuru’s body instead, pulling her closer to me.  She felt a little heavy as she leaned on my body, but it was a comfortable weight, and I realised that as delicate as she had always seemed, this girl could probably be strong if she needed to be.  She fitted perfectly in my arms and for a moment I felt as though her body was merging into mine.

 

It was perfect, it was heavenly, it was more than I ever dared to dream of.  And it was all wrong.

 

Because I couldn’t help thinking of Haruhi.

 

It’s stupid, really, isn’t it?  Here I was kissing the most beautiful girl at North High, the angelic Asahina Mikuru, and I was thinking of Haruhi.  Haruhi who yelled and insulted every day, who hit me on the head with whatever she had at hand, who referred to me as her minion and made me do her bidding.  Haruhi, who was anything at all but feminine or romantic.

 

But Mikuru’s sudden assertiveness just reminded me of Haruhi’s brash confidence.  Somehow Mikuru’s seduction made me think of Haruhi’s blunt attitude.  When Mikuru ran her fingers tenderly through my hair I felt Haruhi ruffling it harshly until it almost hurt.  And the kiss…

 

It should be considered my first kiss, really.  I didn’t really count the silly relationships I had in middle school – having lunch with a girl every day and sometimes having a lightning-fast peck where nobody can see us to tease doesn’t really count for much.  And there’s no way that kissing somebody in a dream could really count for anything, right?  No matter how vivid that experience with Haruhi in the alternate dimension had been, it couldn’t be considered real.  She and I forgot all about that.  We never even talked about.  As far as Haruhi and I were concerned, that incident had never even occurred.  I was only reminded of it whenever Koizumi or Mikuru mentioned it, and even they didn’t know what had really happened.  That kiss didn’t really happen at all.

 

So this should be a new experience for me, shouldn’t it?  There should be nothing to compare to the excitement and the comfort of Mikuru’s embrace, of the softness of her lips and the gentle dance of her tongue.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be better than this.  But I couldn’t help but compare with _that kiss_ with Haruhi in the ‘dream’, that kiss that never happened, a kiss that suddenly seemed more vivid and real than where I was now.  It was with a kind of resignation, rather than surprise, that I finally realised how real that kiss was, and that despite all the time I had spent longing for Mikuru, having her here at last just made me realise how real that kiss with Haruhi had been.  How real, and how much better.

 

I missed her.  I had been missing Haruhi ever since Ryuk appeared and captured her attention so completely.  Mikuru was beautiful, but Haruhi was the person who made life really interesting.  And if I could only have Mikuru when Haruhi didn’t care about me any more, it wasn’t just because of Haruhi’s jealousy, it should be because Haruhi is the person I really love most of all.

 

Pushing Mikuru away from me was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  My mind was torn.  It was heavenly, or it should have been heavenly, and I wanted it _so much_.  But the longer I stood there, the more wrong it felt, the more sure I was that it was only Haruhi that I wanted, and standing here kissing Mikuru seemed so dishonest, to her and to Haruhi and to myself, that in the end it was impossible to resist the urge to push her away from me.

 

“Kyon?” she looked at me, concerned.  She probably thought there was something wrong with me for wriggling out of her grasp like that, as though I didn’t even want her to touch me.  There probably _was_ something wrong with me.  I had to be crazy to dream about Haruhi when Mikuru was here in my arms.

 

Haruhi did always say that love was a mental illness.  She should know.  She’s the craziest person I’ve ever met.

 

“I can’t.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I can’t do this with you, Mikuru.  It’s wrong.”

 

“Because of what Haruhi will do?  I already told you, she isn’t concerned with you any more.  You don’t have to worry about that.”  She shook her head defiantly, but there was a hesitation in her voice.  She was trying to convince herself that that was the reason, not just me.

 

“That’s not why, Mikuru.”

 

Her eyes widened, and she gripped my collar again.  “But I thought you wanted this?  I thought you wanted me!  You always complained about her!  So how could you…”

 

But we never got to finish that conversation.  Because I could even begin to try to explain myself – if there were any acceptable defence for turning down Asahina Mikuru – Koizumi slammed open the door and said, with a venomous hiss, “What the hell do you think you’re _doing_?”

 

Isn’t it obvious, Koizumi?  Naturally Asahina-san wished to consult me for advice…

 

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he said, storming across the room.  Asahina was backing away from me rapidly.  She picked up her bag and clutched it to her chest as though to shield herself from Koizumi’s rage.  “You know exactly what will happen if Suzumiya finds the two of you in such a situation!  With the degree of instability in the world at present how can you _possibly_ be so irresponsible as to do something like this?  Something that you _know_ is likely to drive Suzumiya crazy?  What the hell _is _this?”

 

Asahina made a weak whimpering noise and made another tentative bid for the door as Koizumi seemed to close in on me, but she hesitated.  Maybe it was guilt.  Maybe she’d known all along that the situation she had been describing wasn’t entirely true and that Haruhi still did care about how I felt about her.  Maybe she thought she deserved whatever punishment Koizumi’s wrath was willing to unleash on her.

 

But all he said to her was “Go.  Just get out of here before Suzumiya finds out the two of you were here.”

 

“But she already…”

 

“I said get out, Asahina!” he commanded, and she scurried towards the door with her head down.  She paused in the doorway and looked back at me.  There was more emotion in that look than I have ever seen on a human face before – she was sad and guilty and afraid.  It was a look that said ‘I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you.’  But most of all, it was the face of a girl who realised that she had just been rejected.  The sight of it was so sad that I almost called out to her to try to take back what I had done, even though I knew that would be a lie.  It seemed as though it would be okay to lie to Mikuru if it would make her happy.

 

But isn’t that exactly what she had just done to me?

 

Koizumi, by contrast, was so filled with rage that it seemed to have completely robbed him of words.  He just stood there glaring at me for a long time, and then began pacing up and down the classroom between the rows of desks.  The silence began to bother me, and strangely, I felt the need to start a conversation.

 

“How did you know what we were doing?”

 

“Nagato suspected that Asahina might to something like this.  It seems that they had an interesting conversation last Friday.”

 

‘Be careful’, Nagato had said to me.  Is that what she meant?

 

“It’s clear that Nagato was strongly against your actions, even if she didn’t take any action against you herself!  She even thinks that Ryuk might have put the idea into Asahina’s head when they spoke in the club room once.  Don’t you see that you were playing right into Ryuk’s plans?”

 

He carried on ranting and raving for quite a while.  It was fair enough.  For once I couldn’t find a single problem with anything Koizumi said.  I shouldn’t have trusted Mikuru so easily.  I shouldn’t have been so careless about things that could potentially anger Haruhi.  It wasn’t as though Haruhi didn’t care about me any more.

 

Of course not, Koizumi.  She loves me.

 

I knew all this.  Mikuru had been intoxicating, she had addled my brain, and as sad as I felt for Mikuru herself, it was clear to me now, if rather grim, that there was only one thing to do, and that was to get Haruhi back.  In a way, it would have been nicer to just stay in that embrace with Mikuru forever.  It would have been better if I hadn’t pulled away from her.  It was one thing to accept that it was Haruhi that I wanted, even if it was completely insane.  But that meant accepting the fact that I’d have to draw her away from Ryuk, and that was completely impossible.

 

This was still Haruhi Suzumiya I was thinking about.  And how could a dull, ordinary human like me hope to compete with a god of death, even a completely unfeeling one, for the affection of a person like her?

 

It was getting dark by now, so it was hard to see much of anything outside the window.  The shapes were definitely blurred, and the colours were gone, all melted into shades of black.  But for a moment I could have sworn that I saw a small figure, like that of a school girl, walking away from the school, with someone much larger walking – or maybe even hovering – beside her.

 

She would have been standing right under this window.

 

A moment later, they were gone.  I’m sure I just imagined that, right?

 

_The most interesting thing is seeing what a super-ordinary human like Kyon will do to get what he wants._

 

“Are you done?” I asked Koizumi, interrupting his rant, which had now petered out into intermittent muttering.

 

“I guess I am,” he said, with a sigh.  “I’m sure you get the message by now.  But damn, Kyon, you’re the one who’s been saying that we need to work as a team, and then you go along with Mikuru in putting everything we’ve worked for in danger.  I don’t care which girl it is that you love.  Just don’t you dare forget that your first priority is Haruhi.”

 

You don’t need to tell me that.

**   
**

 

I left soon after that, with Koizumi still spewing warnings behind me.  I didn’t want to listen to him.  I didn’t want to face Mikuru, either, and fortunately she was nowhere to be seen.  I didn’t know where to go at all.  How could I just walk home after a day like this?  It had been bad enough ever since Ryuk had appeared – it sucked going home after a day of chaos and telling my mother and sister that everything was normal.  How could I go home now?  How the hell was I going to sleep _tonight_?  I mean, hey, how the heck am I supposed to get to sleep if I can’t dream of Mikuru to relax any more?

 

Think about Haruhi instead?  You’re kidding, right?

 

It was funny that this seemed like the worst and most disturbing thing that had happened since Ryuk’s arrival.  Because in a way this had nothing to do with Haruhi and it shouldn’t be disturbing at all.  There were no supernatural elements in this evening’s events at all, and no immediate danger to my life, unlike most other occasions.  It was simply a matter of relationships; in fact, it was the most common and ordinary problem that a high school student could have.  But then, for most people, those who don’t spend their days trying to control a capricious girl with the powers of a god – for those people, relationship are the most troublesome things in their lives.  For members of the SOS brigade, relationships take a back seat to the task of dealing with Haruhi, but that doesn’t mean that our social lives are completely unimportant, right?

 

It had clearly affected Mikuru enough to make her disobey orders and endanger us all.  Not to mention making her act remarkably unlike herself.  Who would have thought that Mikuru could be so forward and so confident about such a thing?  I’ll admit that I may have _imagined_ it at times, but I never thought she could actually behave that way.  At least not at the age she is now.  But having seen what she will be like when she’s older…

 

Augh, those old fantasies seem really wrong now!  What’s wrong with me?  Has such an encounter changed things so much?  But it has, of course it has.  How the heck can I even face Mikuru again?  I’ve never really been in such a situation before – that is, I’ve never found myself rejecting a girl in the past.  And definitely never someone as lovely as Mikuru – or someone I cared about so much.  But I could imagine that it was going to be extremely uncomfortable.  Of course, we _had_ been interrupted, but it seems likely that by now she’s gathered the reason that I pushed her away from me.  That in itself would have been insulting enough, wouldn’t it?

 

And it’s also difficult because she lied to me, or at least I think she did, or a lot of it seems wrong.  I mean, she said that Haruhi didn’t care about me any more and then Koizumi came in and said that she did… but then maybe she really did believe that.  Or else she was aware of the fact that Haruhi hasn’t forgotten about me but doesn’t want to believe it, which isn’t the same thing as a lie…  What kind of game is she playing?  Is it a game or does she just want me?  Damn, why is that girl so confusing?

 

And was that really Haruhi who was standing outside the window?  Was there even anyone there, or was I just imagining it because I felt guilty?  What if she was there?  Won’t she be angry, if Koizumi is right and she is still jealous of Mikuru’s position in relation to me?  Shouldn’t she be remaking the world or something right now?  Hey, Haruhi, don’t tell me you’re getting lazy!  But if nothing happens, then either she wasn’t really there, or Mikuru was right and she doesn’t care about me…

 

“I don’t understand any of this!”

 

My hand hurt.

 

In my rage, I had punched the nearest wall, which served to calm me down somewhat and break through the confusion in my mind.  Looking around the darkened corridor, I realised that in my confused state of mind I had wandered back to the place I spend the most time in – the SOS Brigade club room.  Of course.  Where else is there to go at such a time?  And with night beginning and nothing else to do, I thought that I may as well go inside.  It might clear my mind and it might make me feel worse, but at any rate, it will put off going home for a little longer, and maybe distract me for a while.

 

Nagato was sitting by the window reading a book, as always.  She looked up from it briefly when I opened the door, then looked back at the page.  For a few moments she stared at it.  I may be wrong, as it was not a well-lit room and reading involves only the slightest of movements, but I don’t think Nagato was moving her eyes; she wasn’t reading at all.  I can’t be sure, though, because it wasn’t long before she closed the book, stood up and walked over to me.

 

“Why are you still here?”

 

She didn’t answer me, and I wondered how much she had known about Mikuru and me.  There was that strange look that passed between her and Mikuru the other night when they stood at the bottom of Mikuru’s apartment block, and Koizumi said that she had ‘confirmed his suspicions’.  Were they co-operating now?  It was getting too difficult to keep track of the alliances and the motives of all the people in this group.  Can’t we all just get along?

 

“Can I walk home with you?”

 

Nagato said those words without a flicker of emotion that I could detect, but they still surprised me.  Though I had met her to discuss things several times before, she rarely seemed to do things for fun or for pleasure.  Of course, I realised, she probably wanted to discuss something of a serious nature with me while we walked.  But for her to ask in such a way – for her to ask at all rather than order me to meet her – is an amazing development.

 

I stood there for a moment, unsure of what to say.  Nagato began walking towards me and for a brief, crazy moment I thought she was going to push me against the wall as Mikuru had.  But she just stopped before me and looked at me as though she were waiting for something – which, I suppose, she was.

 

“You don’t need to ask to do that.”

 

She didn’t respond to that either.

 

“Of course you can walk home with me.”

 

Her expression didn’t change.

 

“Normally you just tell me when you want to meet me.  Why did you ask?”

 

She didn’t say anything at all for a long time, and just stared at me.  Finally, deciding that she had nothing more to say at this point, I turned around and walked out into the corridor.  Nagato followed, and turned out the clubroom lights behind her.

 

 

The air was bitterly cold at night, much more so than during the day, but it didn’t seem to bother Nagato even though I was shivering miserably as we set off down the hill.  I suppose an alien data interface doesn’t have any particular need to be sensitive to the cold, and I had a feeling that Nagato was the kind of person who didn’t want anything that was unnecessary.  Ugh, that sounds as though she were designing a house or something, not her own body.  But I suppose the same principle applies.  The body is a ‘house’ in some ways, isn’t it?

 

“For me even more than for you,” she said, quietly.  “Humans tend to get attached to their bodies, and care for them or attempt to improve their appearance.”

 

Doesn’t that make it more like a home?  People like to make their houses look nice, too.

 

She was silent for a while and I wondered what it was that she wanted to talk about.  Maybe it was nothing.  Maybe she just wanted the company.  But there was so much going on that it was hard to believe that she had nothing to say at all.

 

How do you even talk to someone like Nagato about feelings, of all things?  “You spoke to Koizumi this afternoon.  What did you say to him?”

 

“I told him that I believed you and Asahina were meeting together.”

 

“Did you tell him why?”

 

“He asked where you were.  I told him what I… guessed.”  She looked away from me.  Was she blushing?

 

“You told him that you thought we were… hmmm… romantically entangled?”

 

She gave the slightest of nods, and I was puzzled.  Nagato, who was notorious for not taking notice of or understanding things like emotion, had worked out what Mikuru intended to do with me when even I didn’t know.  And she had told Koizumi, which meant she was interfering.  At the time, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going on here.

 

“I was suspicious about Asahina’s intentions based on the way she had been behaving towards you since Ryuk’s appearance and the conversation I had with her in her apartment the night that we took Hal there.”  There seemed to be the slightest bit of warmth in her voice at the mention of the dragon, and also regret.  I wondered, too, whether she would be welcome back in Asahina’s apartment after tonight.

 

“Did you disapprove of what Asahina did?”

 

She thought for a moment and then said, “It is complicated.”

 

Normally when Nagato says that something is complicated, she means that it is too difficult to explain to a human and that I wouldn’t understand it.  She usually says this when I’m asking about something relating to the Data Integration Entity or time travel or something else involving technology far more advanced than what I was used to.  But even though it was complicated, this was about people and emotions.  If anything, I was better qualified than Nagato to understand this particular situation.

 

“You should be capable of understanding Asahina Mikuru’s motives yourself, at least to some extent.  She has for some time wanted to make advances to you, but was constrained by both the orders from her superiors and the restrictions imposed by Suzumiya’s projected negative reaction to such an event.”

 

Yes, Asahina told me that.

 

“She feels a great deal of internal conflict at present.  There has been pressure on her from Itsuki Koizumi to alter the present state of affairs, but this contradicts orders from her superiors.  Also, I believe that since Ryuk’s initial appearance, Asahina has changed her mind.  She has come to believe that if the situation continues it will become more dangerous, but she is not permitted to take action.”  She was silent and thought for a while.  “There are factors involved in her motivation that I do not understand.”

 

And what would those be?

 

“There is danger, but she will not take action to prevent harm because to do so will contradict her orders.  Yet she will go against orders to do something purely for her own pleasure.”

 

“You mean kissing me?”

 

“Yes.  However, in order to do that without angering Suzumiya-san, the current situation – that is, the presence of Ryuk and Suzumiya Haruhi’s possession of the Death Note – must be maintained.  Even though she recognises that this endangers people she will not do what is in her power to change it, but she will break orders to…”  Nagato put her hand to her forehead, as she realised her explanation was chasing its tail.  “It is a contradiction.”

 

Simply put, she’s confused.  Ah, Nagato, we’re not all computers.  Sometimes people get confused, and then they may do things which appear to make little sense.  It’s only natural.  Even though I’m confused by Asahina’s actions myself, I have some sympathy for her.  She’s in a difficult situation.

 

“You said that Asahina couldn’t interfere with Haruhi’s present state because it would contradict her orders.  She’s said the same thing on several occasions.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Is the same thing true for you?”

 

She didn’t answer.

 

“Haruhi might reveal the potential for evolution that you’ve been looking for if she continues to behave the way she is at present, isn’t that right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Nagato had said that in our initial ‘meeting’, the day that Ryuk first appeared, but I felt that I had been missing something.  As strange as it seems to me, it’s not entirely unusual for her to defer to me when decisions need to be made.  There was something else odd here.

 

“But when Haruhi and I were taken to that other weird dimension back when the SOS Brigade had only just been formed, both you and Asahina tried to help me get out.  Shouldn’t you have left it alone, since that could have caused Haruhi to reveal the information you were looking for?”

 

“At that point, Suzumiya was engaged in the creation of a new universe and the elimination of the present one.  I would certainly have been able to discover the answers I wanted during such an event.”

 

But you didn’t.

 

“However, allowing Haruhi to continue would have meant the destruction of both myself and the entire Data Thought Entity.  Therefore there was little to be gained by observing such data, as the record would be destroyed and there would remain no entity capable of analysing it.”

 

I had to laugh at that.  I should have known that for Nagato, the explanation would be something as simple and logical as that.  But surely that’s not all?  You were glad to have us back, weren’t you?

 

“Yes.”

 

Everyone was, in fact.  That was a different situation to the one we faced now as Koizumi, Mikuru and Nagato had all been working towards the same purpose.  Now the three of them were at odds with each other.

 

“You knew what Asahina was planning to do with me.”

 

“I did not _know_.  The probability was not one hundred percent.”

 

So you guessed?

 

“The available evidence suggested that my hypothesis had approximately an eighty-two percent chance of being correct.”

 

It shouldn’t be this cold in November.  I was starting to lose the feeling in my fingertips.  Looking at Nagato, who walked as though it was an ordinary sunny day, made me feel even colder.

 

“You never really answered my first question.  Did you disapprove of Mikuru’s decision to meet with me?”

 

Nagato was quiet for some time and I wondered whether this time it was I who had asked a question that was too sensitive.

 

“No, I will answer.  I disapproved of Asahina’s actions because her motives were selfish.  She is using an unfortunate situation to her advantage.  Furthermore, as all three of us have always suspected that such an action could displease Suzumiya to such an extent that she would recreate the world again, Asahina was taking a large risk that went against all our interests in the event that Suzumiya were to react.”

 

I need hourly news bulletins on the alliances between my club members.  They change too often for me to keep track.

 

“Weren’t you and Asahina in agreement about what to do with Ryuk?  Didn’t you both want to wait and see what Suzumiya did so you could get more data or whatever?”

 

“Yes, but this was not a question of data.  When you and Suzumiya were trapped in Suzumiya’s new world, Asahina, Itsuki and myself all agreed leaving you would go against our best interests.  In this case Asahina was endangering all of us, and in a sense going against her own purpose in pursuit of personal gains.”

 

“And that was why you told Koizumi?  Because you knew that he would interfere and stop this?”

 

She nodded.  I didn’t ask why she made no attempt to interfere herself, even though Asahina had always been afraid of her.  It was impossible to imagine Nagato walking into that classroom and telling us to stop as Koizumi had.  I had seen Nagato do many amazing things in the face of danger, but that was a walk in the park for her compared to the task of interfering in someone’s love life.

 

Nagato couldn’t have believed that what happened between Asahina and I was personal and private, though.  If she did, she wouldn’t have told Koizumi what was happening, either.  Asahina was running the risk of sparking off another recreation of the universe, which Nagato and Koizumi didn’t want.  Deep down, Asahina didn’t really want it either.  So there was one thing that all three of them had agreed on.  They might be disagreeing at present, all with competing motives and actions that were tearing the SOS Brigade apart, but they all had a common goal in preventing Haruhi from creating new worlds.  And Asahina had gone against that, so in a sense she had broken the one agreement that these three different people, and three different organisations, had.

 

“It sounds to me like you’re switching alliances, Nagato.”

 

She didn’t respond to that for a long time, and then, slowly, she found it.  “For you and Suzumiya-san, it’s easy.  Your only alliance is to the SOS Brigade.  The rest of us have other duties.  And when they don’t match up, we have to choose.”

 

“The day that Ryuk arrived, you and Asahina were in agreement about not taking action, whereas Itsuki was determined to get rid of Ryuk.  But on the day the plants invaded, you did what I asked you to, and today you gave Itsuki information so that he would interrupt Asahina and I – that sounds like you’re more on our side now.”

 

She nodded.  “Due to the way events have progressed, I feel that eliminating Ryuk is the logical course of action.  Given Asahina Mikuru’s recent decisions, I also find it difficult to maintain an alliance with her.  It would be preferable if she could also assist in removing Ryuk, but it seems unlikely that she will disobey orders.  At least for _that_ purpose.”

 

I couldn’t help smiling.  That’s about as close as Nagato can get to reprimanding somebody.

 

“You act like you disapprove, but _you’ve_ disobeyed orders, Nagato.  And I always thought that as a data interface you’d be the one least likely to break rules.  How can you even think about it?”

 

She was silent.  It can’t have been an easy decision.  Or maybe she’s not answering because she thinks I should already know the answer.

 

“You miss the SOS Brigade, don’t you?”

 

She her head away from me before she answered, and I could hear a mere hint of sadness in her voice that spoke volumes when she answered ‘yes’.

 

Nagato herself barely acknowledged it, but she wasn’t just a piece of the Data Integration Thought Entity.  She was a human, too, with a personality that went beyond programmed data, and real feelings and desires.  And since she had been in the SOS Brigade she had changed so much for the better.  When I think of the three years she spent alone while waiting for Haruhi to come to North High and the emptiness of her apartment, it’s painfully obvious that the SOS Brigade is almost the only thing she has in her life other than an endless succession of books.

 

But what can be done?

 

“How’s Hal doing?”

 

“He grows very fast.”  She was staring away from me, with that very small smile, a look I had rarely seen on her before.  “He’s already twice as big as he was when he hatched.”

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you care so much for anything except books.”

 

She didn’t answer that for a while, just smiled to herself.  “He needs me,” she said, at last.  “And he likes me.”

 

We had reached the place where I had left my bicycle, and it seemed that this was the place where Nagato and I had to part.  She stood staring at me for a while as I pulled it upright and walked it to the road.  Are you going home now?

 

She didn’t answer that.  Instead, she said, “The situation may not be hopeless.”

 

I wish I could believe her.  But the only plan we had come up with was for Asahina to go back in time and prevent Haruhi from finding the Death Note, and even if we had ever had a chance of convincing Mikuru to do so, I doubt she could be convinced now.  Nobody can take the Death Note from Haruhi; she has to give it back to Ryuk, and I don’t know how she can be convinced to do that.

 

“You have discussed these things with Ryuk.”

 

Well, yes, weren’t you in the room?  According to Ryuk, she has to return the Death Note voluntarily before he will leave, and how could we ever convince Haruhi to return it?  She seems to care only about Ryuk, and listen only to Ryuk.  Not that she ever listened to me to begin with.

 

“You have a connection with Ryuk.  Perhaps you can persuade him to see our point of view.”

 

I don’t think so.  Once he wanted his Death Note back, but now he likes being with Suzumiya far too much.  It seems as though Ryuk has never been happier than he is now.  What good would it do for me to talk to him?

 

“If Suzumiya Haruhi listens to him, then perhaps she would return the Death Note if he requested it.  I can get a message to him to arrange for the two of you to meet and discuss this, if you are willing.”

 

Is this what she followed me out here to ask?  Yes, I think it is.  Nagato loves the SOS Brigade and now it is falling apart; to ‘reset’ things is the only way to prevent that, a fact which I believe we are all aware of by now.  She has found a way to prevent this eventuality and now she simply needs someone to help her implement it – just like she had learned of what Asahina and I were doing and needed someone else to stop her.

 

I don’t think there’s anything I can say that would persuade Ryuk to ask for his Death Note back.  But if it’s the only option we have left, I have to try.

 

“Okay, Nagato.  Send a message to Ryuk, and I’ll do my best to convince him.  It seems better than having no plan at all.”

 

I swung a leg over my bike, preparing to pedal away without another word, the way Nagato and I usually parted.  But before I could leave, she interrupted me once more.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

I was surprised by what I saw when I looked over my shoulder.  Nagato couldn’t even meet my eyes.

 

“What are you sorry for?”

 

“I disrupted your meeting with Asahina Mikuru.  I was worried about the stability of Suzumiya Haruhi and the stability of this reality, and also angry at Asahina for such irresponsible behaviour, but I… I failed to consider your feelings.”

 

I could only stare in amazement as she finally lifted her head.

 

“I’m sorry I prevented you from achieving happiness with Asahina.  Please forgive me.”

 

This was just too much.  So much so, that of all the reactions I could have made to her statement, I ended up laughing.  Then I apologised for laughing when I saw her face again.  It was dark, and this was Nagato, after all, but my reaction seemed to have annoyed her.  Apologising and considering someone’s feelings are so out of character for her that it must have taken some effort to say that.  It could even be the real reason she wanted to walk with me, only it took her all this time to say it.

 

“You did the right thing, Nagato-san.  You acted according to what was best for everyone.  Saving this reality is more important than my feelings.  So now I’m going to talk to Ryuk, like you said, and do what I can to try to fix this problem, too.”

 

I barely had the energy to ride all the way home that night.  It had been an utterly exhausting day.  It began as a difficult day and become a completely unexpected one as Mikuru decided to act on her feelings from me.  That was shocking in itself although it should have been a wonderful thing, but to turn away from her because I was thinking of Haruhi – _Haruhi_, who ignores me and yells at me and treats me like her minion – was almost unbearably stupid.  I almost felt like pedalling over to Mikuru’s apartment to take back everything I had said and announce that I would return her love.

 

But it wasn’t true.  Haruhi loved me, and I …

 

It is difficult to say where things stand at present.  I don’t know whether Haruhi cares about me or not, and whether Mikuru’s actions were dangerous or not.  I don’t know what to feel about it.  It felt hopeless, to think that Haruhi perhaps didn’t care about any of us any more… and then to have Nagato come to me with a solution…

 

Oh, for goodness’ sake, this can wait until the morning.  I need some sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Although the air is always bitterly cold, there are a few rare winter mornings where it doesn’t seem like such a punishment.  It was too early for snow yet, but on Friday morning I woke to find the outside world snap-frozen in the most perfect frost I had ever seen.  Frost can be even more beautiful than snow.  While the snow transforms the world, burying it white, frost reveals the uniqueness of every mundane detail that would normally go unseen.  Even as I begin the hard slog up to school and see the other students crushing those perfect frozen blades of grass or the warming sun melting the white outlines traced on the veins of every leaf, the feeling that the world was special this morning doesn’t quite go away.

 

Even though I’ve barely slept and I feel exhausted, I know that whenever there’s a frost in the morning, there always seems to be a clear sky and a bright sun for the rest of the day.

 

On a day such as today, it was hard to believe that the world was in danger from the bizarre whims of such a strange girl as Haruhi Suzumiya.  It was nice, even to someone like me who is not given to grand descriptions of the beauty of nature.  I’m not sure what nature is any more, really.  But it was nice, and normal, and fresh and hopeful at the same time.  The only thing that could disturb the beauty of this morning is seeing Ryuk’s ugly, disturbing black body flying across the sky.  But for now, it was a nice morning.

 

“Hi, Kyon,” Koizumi said, cheerfully, coming up beside me.  It seems that he was pleased by the good weather, too, as he had hardly been cheerful of late except when Haruhi was around.  When he wasn’t complaining about the closed space he was reminding me how foolish I had been to allow Mikuru to ensnare me – increasingly, it was more of the latter than the former.  I tried not to think about the implications of decreased incidents of closed space.  It was too confusing.

 

“You look cheerful today.  Have you made some extraordinary breakthrough in dealing with Haruhi?”

 

“No, but she seems to be settling down somewhat.”  I suppose that’s cause enough for Koizumi to settle down and spare at least one opportunity for telling me off.  “You look tired, Kyon.”

 

I was tired, despite the great pleasure I had expressed at the weather.  Last night, Ryuk had finally paid me a visit.

 

Despite the apparent importance of this operation to Nagato, the meeting between Ryuk and me had not occurred for a few days – it had been a Monday when we discussed it, and it was now Friday.  I had expected Nagato to take action immediately, but the week went by without any change – other than the size of Hal’s body and his appetite – until I grew quite frustrated.  I had complained to Nagato once of the slow pace of this operation, but she had merely told me that she was taking care of it and left me rather abruptly.  Perhaps she’s getting to be a little too human, getting irritated and walking out of the room on me like that.

 

Then again, I suppose it was not particularly diplomatic of me to suggest that she was forgetting the importance of this project because she was spending too much time at Mikuru’s apartment, playing with Hal.  She was there almost every day.  I had visited the apartment once myself – partly to check on Hal, who I feared could literally explode in our faces, and partly to try to talk to Mikuru.

 

She had been avoiding me since that day in the classroom after school.  It was understandable, though.  The day afterwards, Haruhi made me extremely nervous by cornering me as soon as I got to school in the morning and questioning me thoroughly about what I had done after school the night before.  Later, in the club room, she had tried to question Mikuru, who blushed, mumbled and started tripping over things.  It would have been suspicious except that Mikuru acted in this way all the time, it wasn’t long before Haruhi gave up trying to question her, declared her unbearably cute and forced her into a new costume.  Nonetheless, Haruhi had been watching both of us obsessively of late, so much so that she had almost stopped watching out for supernatural things.

 

The meeting in Mikuru’s apartment had been very awkward, and unfortunately brief.  She seemed to think that it was best that we forget completely about what had happened and she had turned back into her usual fumbling, timid self instead of the confident, mature Mikuru that she had lately become.  The truth is, even though I sadly had to refuse her confession, I didn’t want to forget it.  But it was all too weird, so I left too soon, just stopping long enough to pat Hal and mention that he looked as though he would be ready to fly off on his own soon.

 

I’m getting distracted, aren’t I?

 

“I didn’t sleep well.”

 

“Ah, that’s too bad,” Koizumi said, smiling that smile I hadn’t seen for a while – the one that made me want to punch him.  I had mixed feelings about its sudden return.  “Personally I’ve just begun to get enough sleep again – it’s the first time since Ryuk appeared that I’ve been able to do so.”

 

I just grunted in response.  Koizumi’s annoying face was ruining my good mood, and it was an effort to be cheerful after talking to Ryuk.  It turned out that Nagato’s ingenious method of getting messages to Ryuk without Haruhi becoming aware of them was to manipulate the data in the Death Note that Ryuk kept so as to write messages to him.  Of course, since Ryuk only used his notebook occasionally, it had taken some time before he opened it and saw the message that Nagato had left there for him.

 

He used the same method he had the first time we spoke – simply appearing in my bedroom in the middle of the night.  It was pretty disturbing and I really wish he’d stop doing that, but Haruhi really likes it so I guess he assumes it’s the best way to communicate with humans.  I couldn’t convince him to ask Haruhi to give her notebook back at all.  He just replied that he was having too much fun and the things that were going on now were much too interesting for him to change anything at all.

 

I didn’t like the look in his eye as he said that.  I’ve said that his face is impossible to read because he always wears the same smile, but after the time I’ve spent deciphering Nagato’s expressions, reading the face of a god of death is only marginally more difficult.  If Ryuk likes the way things are going, it can only mean that he expects the world to get more chaotic, and I wondered whether he planned to interfere further.  It didn’t really matter, though.  Our plan had been a failure.  Strangely, even though I knew that there was little hope of convincing Ryuk to help me, I had begun to have high hopes for our meeting.  But that last hope to prevent Suzumiya from bringing chaos to us all was gone, and now I just had to fall back onto the old plan of limiting the damage as best I could.

 

At least I had a nice morning to wake up to before I reached the hell that school had become.

 

Haruhi was ignoring me when I got to the classroom, as usual.  She had been acting pretty strangely lately.  That’s an odd thing to say about Haruhi, isn’t it?  She’s always odd.  But there was something different about this.  Even though she was always a very strange girl, she never ignored me altogeter.  She might ignore what I said, but she did tend to bother me with her annoying plans and the weird situations she got me involved in.  Lately she’d been acting as though I didn’t exist.  I suppose now I’m just a potato like all other men, huh?

 

A month ago, I would have been grateful to have Haruhi ignore me.  When Ryuk first appeared, I thought it was a good thing that Haruhi didn’t care much about me any more.  Who wouldn’t get sick of being responsible for her?  But now it was different.  It’s hard to stop being involved with Haruhi once you get to know her.  Now that I know the extent of the influence of supernatural forces in this world – and now that I’ve made friends with an alien, a time traveller and an esper – I doubt I could have left all this and gone back to believing that these things didn’t exist.  I suppose, in that sense, I’m like Haruhi.

 

Heh.

 

“Hey, Haruhi, how are you?”  It’s only polite to at least try to make conversation with the person who sits in the desk behind you, isn’t it?

 

“I’m bored.  Go away.”  I’m afraid it was somewhat exciting that she bothered to respond to me.  She was sprawled over her desk, resting her head on her arms, and didn’t bother raising her head to speak to me, but at least she said something.

 

Isn’t it illogical to tell someone to go away when you’re bored?  Conversation is something of interest, isn’t it?

 

“I said go away!  Talking is just as boring as anything else.  It’s even MORE boring because it’s not even doing anything, just making noise.”

 

How can a girl claim that her life is boring when she’s creating all the excitement she ever wanted?  How can she say that when she could be destroying the world in the process?

 

By not knowing that she’s doing it, I suppose.

 

“Hey, Haruhi, what about the wombats?  They’re not so boring.”

 

Only yesterday, several students playing soccer on the sports field had unexpectedly gotten their legs stuck in holes, which turned out to have been dug by wombats – and apparently a highly endangered species of wombat, at that.  Nobody could figure out how they had even gotten to Japan, much less why they had decided to make their residence in the North High sports field.

 

“But I couldn’t catch them!  What’s the point of a bunch of wombats appearing suddenly at the school if they only get taken away by the people from a zoo so they can be kept for captive breeding because they’re so ‘special’?  Hey, maybe we could get some of them and start breeding them at school!  Wouldn’t it be awesome to have baby wombats around all the time?”

 

I looked out the window to see whether any more wombats had suddenly appeared.  You could always try starting an investigation into how the wombats got here.

 

“But that’s boring.  And the people from the shipping companies wouldn’t listen to a high school student who wanted to see their records to see what ships had come from Australia this week.”

 

She was so certain about that that I suspected she had already tried to trace the origins of the mysterious wombats.  Okay, what about those rumours that Elvis Presley had appeared at a karaoke bar in Osaka?  Maybe we should take a trip to Osaka this weekend, it could be fun!

 

“Moron.  As if I’m going to believe any stupid rumours about Elvis.  There are Elvis impersonators everywhere!  I’m not going on a trip just to go looking for a fake.”

 

Is there any point talking to her?  No matter how nice the weather, I failed last night.  Ryuk isn’t going anywhere, so we’re stuck with the world the way it is.  And if it keeps going on the way it is, it may not be here for much longer.  So what does it matter whether Haruhi talks to me or not?  Why do I even think I can make a difference?  Mikuru thinks Haruhi loves me, Koizumi and Nagato still think I’m the one she chose, but what difference does that make now?

 

And she has the audacity to complain that she’s bored.

 

“So isn’t Ryuk exciting enough for you any more?”

 

It was a bitter question, but I asked all the same.  I’d never asked her something as straightforward as that before, no matter how annoyed I got or how annoying she got.  You’re probably wondering why I asked her such a question at this point.  Maybe you think it was because I was becoming more bitter and frustrated and I was lashing out.  Or perhaps you think that after becoming frustrated with Ryuk’s lack of responsiveness and sympathy, I was trying to get information about Haruhi from the very source herself.  Then again, maybe you think it was because I was becoming more honest and revealing more of myself to Haruhi now because I realise that I love her.

 

Well, that realisation sure did the world a lot of good, didn’t it?

 

“Of course Ryuk’s fun!  He’s wonderful!”  Haruhi said, stubbornly, but she didn’t sound convincing.  I wonder whether she really believed what she was saying herself.

 

“It sounds to me as though he was an exciting new toy for a while but now you’re bored with him and you want something new.”

 

Why yes, I am jealous of Ryuk.  I know I told everyone I didn’t care, but I do.  I’ve done all I can and I still lost, so if I can’t save the world or get the girl I may as well be honest.  I haven’t got much left to lose, right?

 

“That’s not true,” she argued.  “Ryuk’s wonderful.  He’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met.  He’s fascinating, and he loves seeing unusual incidents as much as I do, so he loves coming with me on patrol or when I’m investigating stuff.  And he listens to me, he really cares about what I think.  And sometimes at night we go out and…”  She trailed off, staring out the window, and then dropped her head down onto her arms again, as though she considered the conversation to be over.

 

It may as well be over.  I don’t know whether all of what she said was really true or not.  Maybe she really did think that Ryuk was absolutely wonderful and she wanted to fly off into the sunset with him, or maybe he wasn’t actually living up to what she expected and she was disappointed and frustrated, even if she didn’t admit it.  What difference did it really make?  It wasn’t as though Haruhi were about to pull me back and say something like “But he’s just not as much fun as you are!”  Not that Haruhi would say something like that to me under any circumstances.  Even if she were the sort of person to say nice things, the truth is I’m really not much fun.  I don’t know whether I’ve ever been fun at all.

 

All the same, when Haruhi grabbed me by the back of the collar and pulled so that I bashed my head on her desk in the middle of the second period, for a moment I hoped that that was exactly what she was going to say.  But instead, she was pointing out the window with the appearance of great excitement.  With a great thud, my hope crashed straight through the floor.  The thing she was pointing at was Hal the dragon flying through the air towards the school.

 

Damn!  Hadn’t Nagato and Mikuru realised that he was old enough to fly yet?  They shouldn’t have let it out of the apartment so irresponsibly!  He was now the size of a large dog, and even from a distance, it was clear that he was much too large to be any kind of bird.  His dark green scales were shining, in contrast to the translucency of his membranous wings, and his mouth was hanging open, revealing rows of sharp white teeth – as well as s bright pink tongue which lolled out of his mouth in a way that made him look even more like a dog.  Isn’t it a strange thing that a dragon should pant?

 

I soon became aware of other students looking out the window, and judging from the noise I could hear coming from the neighbouring classrooms, Haruhi was not the only student who had noticed this odd-looking visitor.  Students all over our classroom were now running over to the windows to stare and the hubbub in our room was rising to the same pitch as that I could hear all over the rest of the school.  For a few moments, I was preoccupied with people flooding around me to get to the windows, squashing me and climbing on my desk, and when I looked back, I saw that Hal was, without a doubt, heading directly towards us.

 

He flew straight towards the window and bumped his head against it, then started to lose altitude and flapped his wings furiously to try to keep up.  Clearly he hadn’t had much practice at flying yet and was still trying to get used to it.  His claws scrabbled at the windows and the window frames for a few moments trying to get a grip, but he could find none and he soon dropped off again before flying away again.  He gave one last glance through the window before he left.

 

Could he have been looking for me?

 

“Kyon!”  Haruhi grabbed my arm in her excitement and dragged me out of my chair as the rest of the class stampeded away from the window in search of a place where they could get a better view of the sky.  “Come on, we have to go and meet it!”

 

How on earth are we going to do that?  It probably doesn’t even talk, and it’s _flying_.  It could just keep on flying until it gets tired and never land for all we know.

 

“Don’t be stupid!”  She was running along the corridor now, dragging me behind her, and I realised that she was heading towards the club house.  “If it’s a strange creature then it must be heading towards the SOS Brigade headquarters!  Why else would it be at the school except to look for experts on weird creatures and stuff like us?”

 

Because it’s an animal and it just travels at random, or to places where it thinks there might be food?  Actually, that’s a disturbing point that hadn’t occurred to me!  What if dragons eat humans?  I shouldn’t be letting Mikuru and Nagato spend so much time with it if that’s the case!  Haruhi, on the other hand, would be fine with him.  I think I’d be scared of her even if I had scales and wings to fly away any time I liked.

 

Truthfully, I suspected that Hal had come to the school in search of his ‘mothers’, but I’m not going to mention that to Haruhi.

 

“And besides,” Haruhi said, bright-eyed, as we reached the end of the corridor, “I know that dragon’s come looking for me.  It’s chosen me for something.  Me!”

 

What the heck makes you think that a dumb dragon ‘chose’ you for something?

 

“Because he could have been flying anywhere, but he didn’t.  He came to this school, to my classroom, to my _window_.  And he was looking straight at me.”

 

Oh, of course, I understand now!  I completely agree with you, Chief Suzumiya!

 

Not.

 

There was a crash and a sound of breaking glass loud enough for us to hear it from halfway down the corridor, and I realised that although Haruhi didn’t know it, it was more likely that Hal would go to our club room than I thought.  It was the place where he was born, it was the only place in the school he had seen, and most importantly, it was the place where he had first laid eyes on Mikuru.

 

**   
**

 

We opened the door to find a mess of broken glass all over the floor, and one confused baby dragon making an even greater mess of the rest of the room.  Fortunately, the scales on his feet were tough enough such that he hadn’t cut himself on the broken glass, but he had knocked over the chief’s desk with the computer on it, and the computer parts were lying in a heap on the floor.  I had a nasty feeling that it was probably irreparably broken now and I had no idea how we would pay for it.  Did the school’s insurance cover dragon attacks?

 

At the moment, my first priority had to be to calm down this stupid animal, which was panicking in the confined space and knocking everything around.  As soon as Haruhi and I walked in, both of us had to jump sideways when he gave the large table a shove that sent it crashing towards the door.  He had started scratching at the door of the cupboard, and he was thrashing his wings – which had grown exponentially in proportion to his body since I last saw him – around quite recklessly and threatening to do much more damage if we didn’t stop him soon.

 

With a peculiar insight I realised that he probably just wanted to get inside the cupboard.  Before I could open it to let him in, though, Haruhi had made a lunge for the frightened animal and thrown her arms around its neck.  What the heck do you think you’re doing?

 

“I’m trying to make friends with it!” she said, cheerfully, unperturbed by the writhing neck or the wings that beat the air and blew her hair all over he face.  To my surprise, as she stroked his neck, Hal did calm down and went from thrashing and squawking wildly to curling in on himself, still, although he was still trembling.  Are you taming him or traumatising him, Haruhi?

 

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, hugging Hal with fierceness that I was sure was dangerous to apply to an animal with such lethal appendages.  “It came here looking for me, didn’t you, dragon?”  She grabbed its head from underneath, by the lower jaw, as a vet might grasp a dog or a cat, and forced him to look her in the eye.  “You came here for me.  You chose me.  You’re mine.”

 

But suddenly Hal began struggling again, and I shouted for her to let him go, unsure of what to do.  Haruhi insisted that it was all okay and that she was going to calm him down, and everything was going to be fine, but I didn’t share her confidence at all.  Before I had time to do anything, Hal turned and bit Haruhi’s hand at the same time as I heard the door creak open.  With a loud cry she let him go and jumped back, and Hal bolted for the exit.

 

I rushed to kneel down beside her – awkwardly, because there were still pieces of broken glass littering the floor – and tried to take her hand to get a look at the bite marks, but she pulled it away from me.  She just stayed there, kneeling on the floor, staring at her own hand as it started to bleed, worryingly so.  I told her that we should take her to someone to get it looked at, but she just shook her head, numbly.  Eventually I tugged her to her feet and she winced, noticing for the first time that the glass that littered the floor had cut the skin of her knees and her shins, so she was bleeding even more.  I wondered, briefly, whether Haruhi could heal her own wounds instantly just by her divine will, but it seemed unlikely.  Finally, she looked up at me, her face still vague and unfocused.

 

“How could he?”

 

It was only after that that she noticed, as I did, that Hal hadn’t left the room.  Standing in the doorway was Asahina Mikuru, and Hal the dragon was sitting at her feet, rubbing his head against her body affectionately.  He looked as though he had found the happiest place on earth as Mikuru stroked his head and scratched the softer scales at the back of his head.

 

“Mikuru-chan, what are you doing?”

 

Mikuru looked up, startled, partly because she was absorbed with Hal but also because she recognised, just as I did, the dangerous tone in Haruhi’s voice.

 

“Oh… um… the dragon, it seems young, like it’s just a baby, and maybe it’s scared, so I thought… uh…”  She whipped her hands behind her back, keeping them well away from Hal and stepping away from him for good measure.  She’d learned a few tricks from all the time she’s spent trying not to appear too friendly to me.  But Hal didn’t understand the game like I did and he followed her eagerly as she shuffled into the room and over to the other side of the table from Haruhi and me, squawking happily all the while.

 

“Well, I’m the leader,” Haruhi said, pulling her bleeding hand out of my grip – I had been trying to clean it up with a handkerchief, but apparently Hal and Mikuru were far more important.  “As a weird and unnatural creature he is clearly important to the SOS Brigade, and as the chief of the SOS Brigade I should be the one to take care of him and play with him!”

 

She stalked around the table towards Mikuru and Hal, the crunching of broken glass under her shoes muffled by the carpet, and reached out for the dragon again.  But once again, he struggled out of her grasp and bounded back towards Mikuru, who immediately reached out to hold him – but not before she looked back at Haruhi fearfully.

 

“Mikuru-chan, I said I was going to look after him!”  Haruhi said, with a cheerful face and that same dangerous edge to her voice.

 

“But… Suzumiya-san… he looks as though he would rather be with me.  After all, he did bite you, so maybe it’s best if…”

 

“This is an order from your Chief!  Give the dragon to me!”

 

“NO!”

 

Asahina-san, did you have to choose this moment in time to become defiant?  Haruhi’s eyes widened with shock at what Mikuru had said, and Mikuru seemed shocked at herself.  Her hands were shaking and he had a wild-eyed look on her face.  But she had Hal behind her and as he butted his head against her hand she seemed to find some strength and clenched her fists, staring steadily back at Haruhi.

 

“He’s not just a toy!  I can look after him, and he wants to be with me, so you shouldn’t take him away from me when you just won’t treat him well!”

 

“Shut up, shut up!”

 

On a strange impulse, I glanced out the window.  I half expected to see storm clouds gathering to wreak havoc on the city in an echo of Haruhi’s mood, but there were none.  Just Ryuk hovering by the window, watching.

 

“That’s not how it works!”  Haruhi stamped her foot ineffectually.  In the face of the combined wishes of Mikuru and Hal she was turning into a sulky child, throwing a tantrum at not getting what she wanted.  An adult’s tantrum is ugly at the best of times, but Haruhi could be outright dangerous.  At least a child can only make noise, and perhaps break a few things if it’s really angry.  It may be annoying that Haruhi behaves in such a childish way, and more annoying that we have to treat her like a spoiled child and keep indulging her, but if she were to throw a tantrum it wouldn’t just be a bit of noise and a few broken plates.  It could mean the end of the world.

 

Mikuru should know that.

 

“Hey, why don’t you both just calm down?”

 

Well, I had to say something.  Both of them stared at me with hostility, though; defiance from Mikuru, and barely controlled rage from Haruhi.  I carefully started to edge my way around the table in the centre of the room to come up behind Mikuru.  The dragon should be the responsibility of all the SOS Brigade members, shouldn’t it?  So he doesn’t have to belong to anyone, and you don’t need to fight over him.  We’ll all look after him.

 

I was watching Haruhi carefully.  She gave me and Mikuru a long frown that I couldn’t possibly read, then looked at her bleeding hand for a moment, then looked at Hal, and finally her face softened.  It wasn’t affection I saw on her face as she was gazing at the little dragon, more like longing.  I gave Hal a bit of a nudge towards Haruhi and he stumbled forward.  As she bent over again and he stretched out his head to her curiously, I thought for a moment that we might be able to reach some kind of reconciliation on this.  But when after a few moments he turned around and squawked plaintively at Mikuru again… well, all hell broke loose.

 

One moment I was standing, watching Hal and Haruhi for any warning signs, and the next moment I was on my back at the other end of the room, near the door, with the wind knocked out of me and gasping for breath.  I hadn’t even felt Haruhi touch me.  I noticed, without really thinking about it, that Asahina was also in a similar position to me, lying right next to me, and I groped blindly at her to make sure that she was okay.  When she mumbled something, I managed to struggle to my feet and she grabbed at my arm to pull herself upright as well, though leaning heavily on me all the while.

 

Haruhi had Hal in her arms again, but he wasn’t behaving at all well.  Cleverly, she had pinned his limbs to his torso with her arms, but his tail was lashing about freely and her face had an expression of desperation.  She had what she wanted now, but she had no idea how to handle it, no idea at all.  As I watched, one of Hal’s wings came free and batted her in the face.  The reflex slackening of her grip as a result was more than Hal needed to break free of her grip.  He used her as a springboard, launching himself away from her body with his strong hind legs and taking straight into the air.  He flapped around the room once before he blew through the broken window, and out into the blue sky.

 

“NO!  Come back!”

 

As stupid and crazy as Haruhi had been, there was so much sadness in her cry at that moment that I somehow felt sorry for her.  She gripped the edge of the window ledge in her hands and stared helplessly at Hal’s retreating outline for a moment.  But when she turned back towards us, she didn’t seem sad so much as scary.

 

“_You,_” she hissed at Mikuru, with a monstrous fury behind her.  “You had to get in the way, didn’t you?  You had to take what I wanted.”

 

Mikuru realised that she was still clinging on to me and pushed herself away as best she could, but she was still terribly shaken, as was I.  Anyone would be after being thrown against a wall by the sheer force of Haruhi’s will.  But Mikuru couldn’t move nearly fast enough to avoid Haruhi’s furious attack.

 

“You just take _everything!_”

 

Mikuru winced, whimpered and covered her head with her arms as Haruhi seemed to fly across the room to attack her, but I stepped in and grabbed Haruhi around the middle, hugging her to me so that she couldn’t get at Mikuru.

 

“Get out.”

 

“Um… are you sure?”  Mikuru asked weakly as I struggled to hold back Haruhi’s fury – much like she had struggled to hold on to Hal, I suppose.  “I… it’s my fault, maybe I should try to…”

 

“You heard him, just _get out_,” Haruhi spat at her.  “You _witch_!”

 

With a whimper of a goodbye, Mikuru scurried out of the room, leaving me trying to control a crazy, violent god in the shape of a teenage girl.

 

There were spots of blood on my face – Haruhi’s blood, not mine.  But I could do nothing about her injuries until she calmed down, and so I just held the struggling girl as tightly as I could until she calmed down enough for me to speak to her.  I got sick of it before long, though, and told her to stop carrying on.

 

“Shut up, you idiot,” she muttered, resentfully.  But she sat still for long enough for me to tie my handkerchief around her hand to stem the bleeding for a while.  She didn’t say anything, just stared as I wrapped the piece of cloth around her hand and tied it as tightly as I could under the circumstances.

 

“Now leave me alone,” she said, sullenly.

 

I think she knew I wasn’t going to do that.

 

Her hand could get infected or something.  And there could be glass stuck in her legs.  I had to go and find the nurse.  I grabbed her good arm and tried to pull her out the door, but she wouldn’t budge.

 

“I’m not going anywhere.  I’m waiting here until the dragon comes back.”

 

“Haruhi, I don’t think he’s going to come back.”

 

“Yes he will!  He has to!  It all would have been perfect if Mikuru hadn’t come along and ruined everything!  She ruins _everything_…”

 

“That dragon bit you, Haruhi, before Mikuru even came into the room.  I don’t think the two of you would have gotten along even if she hadn’t come.”

 

“Yes we would,” she said, stubbornly, although she didn’t seem to believe it much herself.

 

“He hurt you, Haruhi.  He’s not something special, he’s a scared wild animal, and those are dangerous.  Now come on.”

 

“It’s all Mikuru’s fault.  If it weren’t for her, everything would be perfect,” Haruhi muttered to herself.  Like a person who turns to superstition instead of believing unpleasant truths, she just latched onto the nearest thing she could blame.

 

But it was more than that, wasn’t it?  Finally the thing Haruhi had dreamed of for so long, something out of this world, had come along.  And when the moment came, it had been a total disappointment.

 

And additionally, if it’s Mikuru she’s attacking… well, maybe Mikuru’s more than just the nearest thing that she can blame.

 

Enough.  I’m tired.  I just want to get her bandaged up and try to get some peace.  Haruhi’s complaints and muttered threats turned into a yelp of surprise as I hoisted her over my shoulder and marched out of the room and down the corridor with her ignoring the fists pounding on my back.  Sometimes even a god had to be dragged kicking and screaming to somewhere they didn’t want to go.  Even a god sometimes has to do something unpleasant for her own good.

 

**   
**

 

Miraculously, all the students were back in their seats by the end of the day, and so once again I found myself sitting in class, trying to stay awake.  In fact, the only thing that was keeping me awake was the annoying presence of Ryuk standing behind Haruhi.  Even if I was keeping my eyes firmly on the teacher at the front of the room, I could just _feel_ that he was there, with that creepy smile of his, and there was no way I was going to get any sleep under those circumstances.

 

Strangely enough, the only person working at this time was Haruhi.  As I lay my head the desk in front of me, both trying to sleep despite Ryuk’s disturbing presence and trying to stay awake for the sake of the teacher, I could hear the sound of her pen scratching across the paper quite clearly.  It was very strange indeed, given that Haruhi typically pays little attention to anything in class.  Most of the other students were fidgeting and whispering, still overawed with excitement about the little visit from Hal.  I would have thought they’d be getting used to weird things happening at this school by now, but then again, I suppose I am more desensitised than the rest.

 

Haruhi had barely spoken to me for the whole of the afternoon.  In fact, she had barely said a word to anyone.  After she had gotten tired of yelling and complaining about me carrying her, I let her down to the floor and she walked beside me to the nurse’s office in stony silence.  She wouldn’t look at me or talk to me, not that I made much effort at conversation myself.  The teachers spent some time rounding up the students and getting them back into some kind of order, not to mention sending someone to clean up the mess of broken glass in our club room, but Haruhi and I were both at first aid the entire time; I had to clean myself up and she had to get her injuries bandaged.  It took some time, but she didn’t respond to any of the nurse’s questions except in the barest of mumbles.  All she did was stare blankly at her hand.

 

It was unusual to see Haruhi completely silent.  Perhaps I should have realised that it was something dangerous.  But I thought the danger was over for today.  Hal had come, Haruhi had had her confrontation with Mikuru.  As ugly and virulent as her anger had been, all that shouting and crying should have gotten it out of her system.  I was also somewhat grateful that Hal had bitten her, simply because it was about time Haruhi saw how dangerous magical or supernatural things could be.  She’d been enjoying the fun part for some time – now she’d had a taste of the danger she was always putting the rest of us in.

 

So I didn’t think too much about the fact that she was silent when I’d never seen her silent before, that she seemed emotionless instead of grumpy or sulky or excitable, that she was writing while the rest of the class were restless when normally it was the other way around.

 

I was so tired.

 

_Get to class 2-3.  Now!  Hurry!_

 

I had seen Koizumi do many weird things, but he had never spoken to my mind before.  Perhaps it should have shocked me.  Perhaps once it would have, but I was too desensitised now.  Or perhaps by this time, I was just too tired to be shocked any more.

 

Then I heard a scream from somewhere in the school, joined immediately by several others from another classroom not too far away, and I realised that some things would always be shocking no matter how tired I was.

 

I bolted upright from my chair whilst all the other students stood frozen in shock and ran towards the door.  I didn’t need to listen to know where the screams were coming from.  Koizumi had already told me what I needed to do.  As I ran down the corridor, I was jostled by a whole lot of students fleeing the classroom and a smaller number fighting their way towards it to see what was going on.

 

“Kyon!”  Before I could even get through the door, Tsuruya was clinging to the front of my shirt.  “Don’t, just don’t, go back… I don’t know what… she was just sitting there daydreaming like she always does…”

 

I pushed her aside, numb, and stepped through the door to see this bizarre scene; some people fighting past me to get out of the door, some milling around helplessly, some apparently frozen.

 

In the middle of the chaos of frightened people and overturned chairs and desks, there was Mikuru.  She was sprawled over her desk, just as I had been minutes ago, and she could well have been asleep.  Her face was as peaceful as if she were sleeping.

 

“I didn’t mean to.”

 

There was a hoarse, fearful whisper behind me, and I turned around to see Haruhi.  For the first time ever she seemed small; terrified, shaking, and clutching the Death Note to her chest for dear life.  And in her usual childish way, denying everything right up to the end.  She looked up at me, pleading.

 

“I didn’t mean to do that!”

 

I remembered her outburst then, the hysterical accusations she flung very specifically at Mikuru.  I remembered her uncharacteristic silence, the shadow beneath the window, the strange way she’d been acting since that night.  I remembered Ryuk hovering by her side in the classroom this afternoon.  Ryuk was everywhere she went.

 

I remembered that argument we had had not long before Ryuk appeared, on another one of her immature days, when I’d told her that if she refused to act like a normal person and kept on insisting that nobody understood her, then maybe she should try keeping a diary.

 

She looked at me desperately for a few more moments until I just couldn’t stand looking at her any more and turned away.  She made one last strangled choking noise, and I knew somehow that she’d run.  I would have to go after her.  She would be unstable now, more so than before, and things would start going wrong very soon, if they weren’t already.

 

But instead I put an arm around Tsuruya’s shoulders and we walked through the now almost empty room to the still body of Asahina Mikuru.  Maybe she had used me and manipulated me, to dangerous extremes.  But she loved me, and she had been a dear and precious friend, and she was beautiful.  She was still beautiful.  So I stroked her hair and I held her still-warm hand and I held Tsuruya until she stopped crying.  I had to go to Haruhi, and I would, soon.  For a moment, though, I needed a few moments to say goodbye.


	7. Chapter 7

I lost track of time as I stood by Mikuru in the classroom.  I remember touching her briefly and holding her hand, and then drawing back so that I didn’t have to feel her body grow cold.  I could watch her, though.  So long as I could still stand there and look at her, it wasn’t really over, and she hadn’t really left.  If I didn’t look too closely I could forget that she wasn’t breathing, and I could prolong my last moments with her a little longer, pretend for just a while that she was still here.  It began to feel as though this moment would drag out forever, this grim, still scene of Mikuru, Tsuruya and myself.

 

It might have gone on forever, had Koizumi not smashed through a window and tripped as he landed on the classroom floor.  Naturally, being the person that I am, I will not be allowed any peace even to grieve.  Sometimes I begin to think that the only time I will ever experience peace is when _I’m _dead!

 

It’s probably not a good time to joke about that.

 

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Koizumi panted as he picked himself up off the floor and tried to look dignified.  “But I need you to help Suzumiya.”

 

Even when she’s just killed my friend, it falls to me to help Haruhi Suzumiya.

 

“Do you _want_ her to destroy the world?  No, wait, don’t answer that.  But I must appeal to you to do what you can to stop her.  I don’t want to rush you, I understand what a shock this is, but I don’t think we have much time.  The other espers and I are fighting the damage as best we can, but Suzumiya is lashing out so violently that we can only hold it off for so long.”

 

I had been so absorbed in thinking about Mikuru and comforting Tsuruya that I hadn’t noticed the changes to the world around me.  The world seemed greyer than it had before.  That sounds a bit understated, doesn’t it?  Perhaps I should be saying that all the colour had been sucked out of the world with Mikuru’s death, that there was no longer any interest or purpose or worth in anything without her.

 

However, when I say that the world seemed grey, I am not being metaphorical colour had been drained from the world, just as in that ‘other world’ that Haruhi once dragged me into.  There was no question that this was Haruhi’s work.  The final tantrum of a girl who knows no other way to react.

 

Koizumi was already arguing his point, as well as gathering his psychic energy to fight off who-knows-what, when I said “Okay.”

 

“What?”  It was as though the wind had been knocked out of him.  The energy he had been collecting dissipated instantly and for a moment, he was speechless.

 

“I’ll go to Haruhi.  Where is she?”

 

“In the club room,” Koizumi said, after a moment.  “Nagato headed in that direction.  She’ll help you.”

 

I nodded, and then turned to Tsuruya to say goodbye.  She wasn’t there.  It was as though she just disappeared while I wasn’t looking.

 

“You see?  Who knows what Haruhi will decide to delete from this world next?  I’m sorry, Kyon, but we have to take action now.  It can’t wait.”

 

I nodded and looked at Mikuru again, then back at Koizumi.  He was already hovering just off the floor, preparing to go and fight again.  He was probably the most annoying person I had ever met, except perhaps for Haruhi, and most of the time he drove me mad, but he had worn himself out putting out Haruhi’s fires for the last few weeks.  I haven’t been as helpful as I could have been, even though I made excuses for it, but he never stopped fighting.  And even though he must be numb with shock from Mikuru’s death, too, he still risked his life fighting Haruhi’s demons without a second thought.

 

If I didn’t stop her, that would be for nothing.

 

“Koizumi!”

 

He turned and looked over his shoulder, already halfway through the window.

 

“Thank you.  And… look after yourself.  I… I hope we meet again.”

 

He stared at me, and then his face broke into a smile.  It was different to the smile I usually saw on his face.  Perhaps for the first time I was seeing Koizumi Itsuki’s real smile.

 

“I hope to see you again too, Kyon.  I won’t let you down.”

 

“I won’t let you down either.”

 

“And when this is over, we’ll sit together and remember Mikuru, okay?”

 

I didn’t see him leave.  I planned to leave without looking back, too, but as I reached the door, I couldn’t help glancing back to look at Mikuru one more time.  And then, without a word, I dragged myself out of the classroom and away from Mikuru forever.

 

By the time I got to the building that housed the cultural and arts clubs, it was deserted.  In fact, the entire school had been deserted – I hadn’t encountered a single other person in the halls since I left Mikuru’s classroom.  Had they all just run off in a panic after they heard about Mikuru’s death?  Had Haruhi been so guilty that she just willed everyone away?  Or had she just decided to recreate the world without any of them in it?

 

I dreaded walking down that corridor.  I knew I had to.  I _wanted_ to, because I certainly didn’t want Haruhi remaking the world.  There was something deeply unpleasant about it, though; it was if the air itself was warning me to turn around and go back.  As I stood there, thinking, several of the lights in the corridor flickered and dimmed, and I noticed that somehow the light was developing a bluish tinge.  A breeze blew down the corridor and into my face.  That was _definitely_ not something that was supposed to happen indoors.  They were subtle signs of unnatural goings on, but they filled me with an overwhelming compulsion to run away as fast as I could.

 

Another gust of wind blew in my face, carrying with it the barely audible sound of a girl sobbing – and the sound of Ryuk’s laugh.  That was enough.  Without even thinking, I took off towards the SOS Brigade clubroom as fast as I could.

 

Two seconds later I found myself thrown violently against a wall and sank to the floor, rubbing the back of my aching head.  Damn it, Haruhi, why do you hate me this much?  As I hadn’t seen anything attack me, I thought it must have been the sheer force of Haruhi’s will that had almost knocked me out.  I shook my head to try to clear it.  Haruhi had only done that to me once before, earlier that day, when she was extremely angry, and she couldn’t possibly be that angry at me right now.  And besides, how had she known I was here?

 

I looked up, and when my vision had cleared and I no longer saw lights dancing before my face, I saw a thick green vine looming a few metres away, and more creeping out from under the other doors along the corridor.

 

“The limitations I placed on the vegetable life have been overwritten by Suzumiya.”

 

I looked up to see Nagato standing in the entrance to the corridor.  I’d forgotten Koizumi telling me she was coming to help me.  Maybe she can’t help, though.  I guess when Haruhi goes crazy, even Nagato can’t compete when it comes to controlling data.

 

“I am not powerless.”

 

I’m sorry, did I annoy you?

 

Nagato didn’t reply, but stared past me at the corridor, which was becoming increasingly filled with plants.  They were gradually growing to fill the entire space, like a fortress of thorns.  Was it Nagato who had told me to remember the story of Sleeping Beauty, many months ago?  Or was it Mikuru?

 

Nagato reached out a hand and muttered something, and instantly the thorns in front of her hand began to wither.

 

“Watch out!”

 

A thick, thorned tendril had lashed out to try to attack Nagato from behind, but she barely had to shift her stance to make that one crumble to dust, too.  More and more shot out from the mass of thorns to try to stop her, but they didn’t stand a chance.

 

Okay Nagato, I take it back.  You can definitely compete with Haruhi for control of environmental data or whatever you want to call it.

“We don’t have time to talk.  Keep close behind me while I advance towards the room.”

 

But won’t the plants just attack me from behind, then?

 

She frowned in thought as she continued to fend off the attacking greenery.  “Keep your back to the wall and move sideways.  That way I only have to defend you from three sides.”

 

Somehow, that’s not much more reassuring.  But there aren’t any better plans at the moment, so I guess I just have to go with what we’ve got.  I dragged my aching body to its feet and began edging along the wall, through the constant onslaught.

 

It worked surprisingly well, though I must admit it was somewhat strange to be so tightly squashed between the corridor wall and Nagato’s back – I didn’t realise she was so strong.  Perhaps a Data Interface is just as strong as she needs to be.  We did hit a little snag when we went past the first door and several creepers slithered underneath to grab my ankles, but Nagato’s solution of kicking me in the shins was highly effective.  I should have known I wouldn’t be able to get through all this without considerable injury.  For the most part, I was fine, and it was only a few minutes before we were near the SOS Brigade club room.

 

Perhaps it was because we were getting closer to Haruhi, the source of the power, or perhaps it was that Nagato was just getting tired.  Without warning, one thin, whippy plant tendril shot through Nagato’s defence towards my face.  To my surprise, I managed to react quickly enough to catch it with my own hand.

 

There was a flower at its tip.

 

_Isn’t it wonderful?_

 

As it wriggled in my grasp, the scent of that flower made me briefly forget the chaos going on around me – it was the flower that Haruhi had given me not so long ago, the day after we met Ryuk, when she was trying to convince me that these new weird things were good, too.  When Nagato first beat back the plants, she had sealed it in that flowering shrub.

 

It’s interesting how these little coincidences keep popping up, isn’t it?

 

Suddenly the tendril stopped wriggling and I realised that Nagato had cut it off lower down.

 

“What are you doing?  Pay attention!” she said, with a note of urgency that I don’t think I’d ever heard in her voice before.  Is she getting tired?

 

“Yes.  We’re here.”

 

I had my back against the club room door.

 

“I’ll keep you safe.  Go inside.”

 

“Isn’t Nagato going to come with me?”

 

“It is not my place.”

 

What’s that supposed to mean?

 

“I dismantle any barriers that block your way.  But I do not have the… capabilities… to resolve the… the source.”

 

“You won’t come inside because you’re no good with talking, huh?  I’d still like it if you came with me.”

 

She shook her head imperceptibly.  “I have completed my task.  This is your task.  My presence will only complicate it.”

 

I didn’t want to go in there alone, but I should have expected it.  The last step always falls to me in the end.  I wanted to argue with her, but there wasn’t time.  Instead, I just had to accept it.

 

“Thank you, Nagato.”

 

She didn’t respond.  I shouldn’t have expected her to, but sometimes I wish she’d say _something_.  The world’s gone mad and Koizumi’s fighting it and Haruhi’s doing goodness knows what in there and Mikuru’s _dead_ and I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again!

 

“I am busy,” Nagato muttered.  But suddenly, she seemed to gather all her energy together and to my utter surprise she made a sudden swipe at the plants with both arms and they burst into flames.  A second later, all the plant life had been replaced by ashes, and Nagato had turned around to look at me.

 

“Why didn’t you do that to start with?”

 

“Incinerating the plant life requires a large output of energy, and it is only a temporary state.  We have a limited time before the plants regenerate.  You must enter the room quickly, as I do not have enough remaining energy to defend both of us.”

 

Huh, that was a long statement for you, Nagato.

 

“You wanted me to talk.”

 

That’s not really what I meant, though.

 

“Then what was it you wanted me to say?”

 

I don’t know.  I guess I just wanted a chance to say goodbye.

 

“Ah.”  Nagato held out her hand, and I took it.  It was an oddly formal way to say what could end up being our last goodbye.

 

“I hope I see you again, Nagato.  But if I don’t… well, I’m glad I met you, anyway.”

 

“I am glad I met you, too.  You are…” she stopped, and seemed to struggle for words.  “You are not interesting only because you are the one chosen by Suzumiya.  You are truly a special human to… notice… understand…”  She paused again, for a long time, and seemed to give up on what she was trying to say.

 

“There’s no time to explain fully.  To put it simply, I made a choice.”

 

“To put the SOS Brigade first, right?”

 

She nodded, and for a moment, I forgot about my failures because this, at least for me, was a victory as valuable as any I could claim over Ryuk.  Nagato Yuki was learning, and _becoming_, more than just a data interface.  She was placed here with a mission, but she had really come to care about the SOS Brigade.  She missed it, just like I thought.  And now she had decided to protect what she loved, not just do what she was ordered.

 

“This wasn’t in accordance with your mission.  None of the things you’ve done to help me were.  It won’t help with the data gathering, will it?”

 

She was silent.

 

“Will you be punished if they find out?”

 

“If you succeed, they will never find out.  If you fail, we will all die.”

 

That’s a good point, but Nagato also seems to have learned the art of avoiding questions.

 

“You disobeyed before, didn’t you?  Telling Ryuk to meet me?”

 

She nodded.

 

“You haven’t been deleted for that.”

 

“If Suzumiya does not wish it…”

 

She never finished the sentence.  Both of us knew that this had to end.

 

“I have to go.”  I could see the new green shoots rising up, much faster than any normal plant.

 

“Understood.”  Nagato stepped back, glanced over her shoulder and looked back at me.  “Be quick.”

 

“I will.”

 

“Goodbye, Kyon.”

 

“Goodbye, Nagato.  And even if your masters say you did the wrong thing, I’m proud of you.”

 

She turned her back to me and raised her arms, bracing herself for the inevitable onslaught.  I turned my back on her as well, slipped through the door and closed it firmly behind me.

**   
**

 

The first thing I noticed was Ryuk staring out the window, engrossed in the chaos Haruhi was wreaking on the outside world.  The second thing I noticed was a dry, racking sob, and I turned to my right to see a mess.  The divider that had become Mikuru’s ‘dressing room’ had been knocked to the floor and the costumes that had collected there since the club began had been torn from their hangers and dropped on the floor.  In the middle of it all, with her face buried in Mikuru’s maid costume, was Haruhi Suzumiya, and I realised suddenly that for all her unfathomable moods, this was the first time I had ever seen her cry.

 

“Oh, Haruhi.”

 

She froze and straightened slightly – evidently she hadn’t heard me come in - and slowly turned her tear-streaked face towards me.  For a brief moment, she looked into my eyes, and then dropped her gaze and hugged the dress again.

 

“Go away.”

 

“No.”

 

She ignored me, as though she’d prefer to pretend that I just wasn’t there.  I realised after a moment that it was a dangerous thing for Haruhi to imagine; in her current unstable state, she could probably wish me right out of existence.  Just as I was about to say something to distract her when she spoke up again.

 

“I know you’re still here.”  She didn’t turn around and her voice sounded weak and unsure.  This is a scary thing in itself.  “I told you to go away, moron.  That’s a direct order from your Chief.  Go away!”

 

“After it was such a bother to get here?  I’m not just going to walk off without a fight after you put me through so much trouble.  Don’t you…”

 

I stopped talking abruptly with surprise when Haruhi spun around looking furious instead of grief-stricken.  In a way, it was a relief to see her usual noisy self.

 

“Leave me alone!  Just go!  What’s so hard about that?  I don’t want to see your stupid face here a moment longer.  Not unless you…”  Her voice cracked, and her eyes dropped to the floor again, even as she tried to hold firm.  “Not unless you can bring her back.”

 

I was supposed to know what to do in order to stop Haruhi from messing up the world even more.  That’s how this works, isn’t it?  The first time I was told that I was the one who had to work out how to stop her from remaking the world – because I was ‘the one chosen by Suzumiya-san’ – I thought it was ridiculous.  Anyone would be a better at preventing disaster than me definitely any of the other members of the SOS Brigade.  And yet, somehow, it always seemed to fall to me to work things out, until I got used to it.  I’d gotten so used to it that when I was running to the club house or fighting through the vines, I hadn’t thought about what I’d say to Haruhi once I found her.  I just assumed that like every other time, I’d somehow know what to do.

 

All the plans I’d discussed with others on how to get rid of Ryuk had gone clean out of my head.  All I could think of were words.  Things I wanted to say.  “Why did you do it?”  “Did you really care about her?”  “Was it worth this to be chosen by a god of death?”

 

To Yuki, she had been the potential for evolution.  To Koizumi, she had been God.  To me… well, Haruhi has always meant a lot of different things to me.  Haruhi is Haruhi.  But today… today, she’s the girl who killed our classmate.  Our friend.  But Mikuru had been her friend, too.

 

I didn’t know what I could say without making Haruhi’s mental state even worse.  So instead, I knelt down beside her and hugged her.

 

It was awkward, kneeling and slipping in the pile of discarded costumes on the ground.  Haruhi was unresponsive – she didn’t move in the slightest, which made it uncomfortable to keep my arms around her shoulders.  But eventually she relaxed and leaned against me, and her breathing became quieter as she calmed down and the sobbing stopped.  For a long time we just sat there in silence.  This would be a really embarrassing position to be caught in, but nobody’s likely to see us.  I’m not even sure how many people are left in the school – or in the world.  Nothing has changed yet.

 

So what do I do now?

 

“I didn’t really think it would kill her.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Don’t be a moron, Kyon.  I know you’re not that stupid.  You want to know why I killed her, don’t you?  Isn’t that what you came for?  Because you _liked_ her,” she added, with a bitter tinge to her voice.

 

I told her that I didn’t know what she was talking about.  Then I realised that with Mikuru dead, there wasn’t much point in feigning innocence any more.

 

“I liked her just as much as you liked her, Haruhi, but not the way you think.”

 

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” she said.  “I saw you kissing her in the classroom that night, I saw you talking, I saw the way she clung to you when that dragon… the dragon, too, she took that away from me as well… she just kept taking everything away from me!”

 

“I thought Ryuk was so wonderful that you didn’t need us any more.  That’s what Mikuru thought, too, and Nagato.  We thought you didn’t care about us.”

 

She looked away.  The wind that had been circulating the room suddenly picked up slightly, and I noticed for the first time that the window Hal had smashed through earlier in the morning was still broken.  But of course it is.  Even Haruhi wouldn’t fix a window in one day.

 

“I did need you,” she said, quietly, and shuffled away from me.  Then she reached out a hand to where she had dropped the Death Note, searched for a page and thrust it at me.  Scrawled in the middle of the page in a childish handwriting were the words ‘I wish Asahina Mikuru would die!’

 

“I didn’t think it would work,” she said, in a small voice.  “I wrote lots of things in there before and none of them came true.”

 

It’s a Death Note, Haruhi.  It doesn’t grant wishes.  It just kills people when you write their names in it.  Didn’t you know that?

 

She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth.  “I didn’t think it would work.”

 

Haruhi ignores information she isn’t interested in.  She never did pay much attention to the rules of the Death Note, if Ryuk could be believed.

 

“You did know, didn’t you?”

 

“I didn’t really believe it!” She wailed again.  “I was just so angry, and it _hurt_, and I wanted to _do_ something so badly and you’re the one who told me to keep a diary so I did but it didn’t kill you…”

 

Because you didn’t use my real name.  It only works if you use the real name.

 

“I didn’t know,” she insisted, but she sounded doubtful, like she didn’t really believe herself any more.  “I didn’t know, and I didn’t really mean to kill her.”

 

Haruhi really had been angry at Mikuru.  I’d have to be pretty stupid not to see that, and I can’t blame her for being angry.  She hadn’t been as happy as she seemed.  And she had good reason to think that Mikuru and I were really in love.  But I don’t think she meant to kill her.  She just reacted, the way she always does, without thinking about the consequences, and for the first time ever, she had done something she regretted.  Imagine never having any regrets until something like this.  It’s enough to make anyone…

 

My train of thought was interrupted as a stronger gust of wind knocked the clock off the wall and it fell towards us.  I was sure it was going to hit me, but somehow it landed on Haruhi’s head instead.  She didn’t flinch; she didn’t even raise her head.

 

“Haruhi, are you okay?”  I looked towards the window and saw that the wind was picking up.  “We should get out of here.  It’s getting dangerous.”

 

Even as I spoke another gust of wind came in, this time carrying a load of sticks and gravel that blew straight into Haruhi, grazing her skin and sticking in her hair.  Yet she still didn’t move, even when I took hold of her arm and tried to pull her upright.  All she wanted to do was to sit there with her head on her knees.  Well, if you’re not going to save yourself maybe I should just let you sit there and get hurt.

 

The wind was getting stronger.  A few of the glass shards that had been lying on the floor were whirled up into the air and flew towards us as well.  I didn’t have time to get out of the way, just to throw my hands up in front of my face, but a moment later, I realised that none of them had hit me.  When I looked up, Haruhi still hadn’t moved, but I could see blood on her arms and legs.  The glass had only hit her.  The clock, the gravel, everything – it was only hurting her.

 

Was she doing this to herself?

 

Haruhi had never been sick before.  She never got injured, either.  It made sense to think that it was simply because she didn’t want to; she had that power.  But if she really did hate herself right now, was she turning the world itself against her?

 

I believed that she hadn’t meant to kill Mikuru, but I don’t think she did.  And the guilt was more than a childish mind like hers could handle.

 

Later I reflected that that suicidal impulse could have solved all the problems I was facing at that moment.  If Haruhi disappeared, so would all the problems associated with her.  I could go back to having a normal life.  But it wouldn’t bring Mikuru back, and it might well mean the end of Yuki and Koizumi as well; it would remove the purpose of their existence.  Who knew – the end of Haruhi Suzumiya could mean the end of the world.  If I had thought about those things, I think my choice would still have been the same, but at the time, such cold thoughts never crossed my mind.  Indeed, I had no thoughts for the fate of the world at all, only the more selfish thought that I didn’t want my friend to die.

 

“Haruhi, we can fix this.”

 

She looked up at me, wide-eyed with childish hope, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a larger shard of glass that had been flying towards her head suddenly change course and embed itself in the wall.

 

“Give the Death Note back to Ryuk.  Make him the owner again.”

 

“Will that really work?”  She stood and turned towards Ryuk, who so far had paid little attention to us.  Instead, he had been gazing out the broken window, rapt with the bizarre sights he could see outside.

 

“If you relinquish your ownership of the Death Note, all your memories associated with the Death Note will be lost.  Including killing Mikuru.”

 

“Really!”  Haruhi brightened, and then hastily wiped her eyes on her sleeves.  “I can have Mikuru back?”

 

“It won’t be you who killed her,” Ryuk replied, at last.  “You won’t be guilty if you do this.”

 

Haruhi seemed less sure about that.  For me, a world where Haruhi wanted to live was better than one where she didn’t, with or without Mikuru.  But I also knew that if Haruhi really wanted something to happen, it was possible, whether that be death or life.  We just don’t know.

 

“We don’t know.  But there’s nothing else we can do.  And as long as it’s a possibility, we should try it, right?”

 

“And I’ll forget everything.  I’ll forget what I did!”

 

She’s more worried about not being guilty.  Typical Haruhi.  I don’t think she’s ever accepted responsibility for anything she’s done in her life.  This is the only time she’s done something too bad to overlook.  The first regret she’s ever had.

 

“Will I forget Ryuk, too?”

 

“Of course,” Ryuk said.  “I come with the Death Note, and I leave with it, too.”

 

“Oh,” said Haruhi, softly, hugging the notebook to her body.  “I’ll miss you.”

 

“No you won’t,” Ryuk said, with a leer, “You won’t remember me.  I’ll miss… I’d miss all this, though.  You have been very, very interesting.  I hadn’t dreamed that the world could be this interesting.”

 

His eyes gleamed with excitement.  I suppose he was excited when Haruhi killed Mikuru, too; anything seems to be interesting to him, whether it’s good or bad.  Good and bad don’t seem to exist for him.

 

“You don’t have to give me back the book, Haruhi,” Ryuk spoke up.  “In fact, I would prefer it if you didn’t.  This has been the best time of my life.  I don’t want to go back to my world, where there’s nothing but gambling.”  He finally turned around and walked towards us, so that he was as close to her as I was, and put a hand on her shoulder.

 

“So don’t.  Don’t do it.  Don’t make me go back to my boring world, and you don’t have to go back to yours!  We’re both better off this way!”

 

She flinched when he touched her.  It was a small movement, but after months of observing Nagato, I was used to watching for the smallest movements.

 

“I want to stay here.  I want to be in _your_ world, where all these interesting things happen and there’s someone else who loves such interesting things, too.  Nobody else in my world cares about such things… and nobody else here does, either.”

 

“That’s true,” Haruhi murmured.  “It was so nice to have Ryuk around.  I made the SOS Brigade to look for such exciting things, but nobody else in the club even cares!  But Ryuk does…”  And she looked at him again with that look – even though she was scared, of him and of everything else, she could still give him that stupid, dopey, lovey look.

 

Ah, there it is again.  I’m jealous.  But jealousy is getting boring.  It’s become an irritating habit.  Is this how Haruhi felt when she wrote Mikuru’s name in that book?  I’m tired of being jealous.  It’s frustrating and it’s dull.

 

“That’s not true, Haruhi.  You don’t need Ryuk.”

 

The flower I had taken from the vine had somehow found its way into my pocket, and Haruhi stared as I pulled it out.  I thought the flower that Haruhi had given me that day, all those weeks ago, had crumbled, but this one was as fresh and as beautiful as though it had only bloomed this morning.

 

“Haruhi tried to show me that such weird and interesting things were good, but I could only think of what was bad about them.  But the truth is… well, I missed you after you missed Ryuk.  I know I complain, but my life is so boring without the SOS Brigade that I don’t want to live without you and your troublesome plans.”

 

She was staring at me.  How far do you need me to go, Haruhi?  This is embarrassing enough o say as it is.

 

“And besides that, it’s not just boring, it was lonely.  Nagato, Koizumi and I, we were so lonely when you spent all your time with Ryuk instead of us.  We all need you.  So I promise… I mean, I guess you won’t remember that I’m making a promise, but if you do give back the Death Note, we’ll try to be just as much fun as Ryuk is.”

 

She took the flower from my outstretched hand and stared at it, then closed her eyes as she raised it to her face, breathing in the scent.  And then she looked back towards Ryuk with an expression of confusion on her face.  Haruhi, do you really think you’re in some kind of romance story where you have to choose between two suitors?  You can’t honestly need help with this decision, can you?

 

“Do you love Ryuk?”

 

“What?” she was startled.  “What the hell do you –”

 

“Because he doesn’t love you.  Gods of death don’t know how to love, do they, Ryuk?  He just likes to be around you because you’re entertaining.  Even when it means that people die, like Mikuru died, he still likes those things because he thinks that’s interesting!  He’d probably be happy if I died right now!”

 

And you know that, don’t you, Haruhi?  That’s why you got frustrated with Ryuk, too, just like you got frustrated with me.  Because he wasn’t quite what you wanted.

 

“Or do you really like me?”

 

“What are you on about this time?  Idiot!” she said, dismissively.  But she was blushing this time.

 

“I said Nagato and Koizumi need you, but I need you more.  Much more.  That is, I want you… um, I mean, I want us to…”

 

I never meant this to happen!  I should have known Haruhi wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d forced me to make the most embarrassing confession possible.

 

“Well, I… I know there were some strange events with Mikuru, and they made you think… well, that’s not true, and the thing is, it made me realise…  That I really like Haruhi, you see.”

 

She stared at me, then looked out the broken window at the destruction outside, and then back at me.

 

“This isn’t a dream again, is it?”

 

Ha.  I wish it were a dream

 

“Don’t confess to a girl and say a thing like that!”

 

But she was smiling.  It was a sad smile, but she was smiling all the same.  With the world falling down around our ears, all because of her, is Haruhi finally making a joke?  I stopped thinking about that quite soon, though, because the next thing she did was to drop the Death Note on the floor, put her arms around my waist and her chin on my shoulder and murmured into my ear in such a way that I felt a shiver.

 

“The truth is that I really like Kyon, too.”

 

I never would have thought before now that I would be glad to hear her say such a thing, or even that a girl such as Haruhi would be able to say something like that.  Maybe it takes such strange ingredients as a shinigami, a twisted mess of jealousy and an accidental death to make these things happen.  It’s too high a price to pay for us to stop being stubborn about our feelings, but it’s too late to change it now.

 

Now I realised what I had been missing with Mikuru.  This time, it felt right.

 

It’s sad that she isn’t going to remember that.  She won’t remember that I said such things to her, that even if it was in ridiculous circumstances I was finally able to love her.  But then, I only found out that she loved me because of Ryuk’s interference… and I only realised that I loved her because of it as well.  We were both going to forget that we loved each other.  And I would forget other things, too… Hal the dragon, my conversations with Yuki and Koizumi, the school being overtaken by plants, the ghosts… and I was going to forget that I had ever kissed Mikuru.

 

Haruhi is a child.  She doesn’t care about what she loses, and what other people lose, so long as she can absolve herself of guilt, and make the bad memories go away.  But even though I want things to be back to normal, I don’t want to lose the good things I’ve found, either.

 

“I don’t want to forget.”

 

“I do.”

 

She stepped back away from me and picked the Death Note up off the floor.  Still a child.  But she wiped the last of the tears from her eyes and forced a bitter smile onto her face as she tried to look brave.  I still found it hard to believe that Haruhi could cry… and though everything else was falling down around us, I was still excited to feel her pressing her hand into mine.

 

“Well, Kyon, maybe you should keep a diary.”

 

Then she pushed me away and turned to Ryuk, holding out the Death Note.

 

And then everything stopped.


	8. Epilogue

When the shinigami Ryuk made his third and final midnight visit to my bedroom, he didn’t startle me in the slightest.  Despite feeling exhausted and going straight to bed after coming home from school, I hadn’t had any sleep whatsoever.  After hours of lying awake in bed, I was actually glad to see his big, ugly face.

 

“So everything’s back to normal, is it?”

 

“Yes,” said Ryuk.  I felt certain he wasn’t happy with this latest turn of events, but his expression never changed.

 

“Then why do I still remember?”

 

Before Haruhi gave up ownership of the Death Note, the world was falling apart.  I didn’t know what was going on outside; whether Koizumi was alive and fighting, whether Nagato had fought her way out of the building or whether she’d been overcome.  The world ended at the clubroom’s walls, and everything outside them was chaos.

 

Yet the moment that notebook changed hands, everything snapped back to normal.  In the moment it took me to blink, the storm had been replaced by blue skies and the weak sun of winter, and before I knew it, Ryuk had taken off out the window and was rapidly becoming a black speck in the sky.  As I came out of my shock, I realised that Haruhi was shouting at me.

 

“Kyon!” she suddenly shoved her face in front of mine and I stumbled backwards.  “What are you doing just staring into space like that?  Stop acting like a useless idiot and help me clean up.”

 

Can’t you see Ryuk leaving?

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

I pointed out the window at the shrinking, but still visible monster.

 

“There’s nothing there, Kyon.  There’s not a single thing in the sky.”

 

“There is.  There’s a monster out there.  A god of death.  _Ryuk_.  Can’t you see him?”

 

I would have thought that Haruhi would be excited to hear me talking about monsters, but to my surprise, she whacked me on the back of the head with something.  I was shocked by how much it smarted and when I stopped seeing stars in front of my eyes, I realised that Haruhi was holding a broom.  The window was still broken and Mikuru’s costumes were still on the ground, and Haruhi couldn’t see Ryuk.

 

What happened?

 

“Suzumiya-san didn’t tell you?” asked Koizumi, who had just walked through the door, along with Nagato.  “Someone practicing their baseball during the day hit a ball through the window.  It knocked over all the costumes and everything.”

 

“You were the first one here when it happened,” Nagato added.

 

I couldn’t decipher her expression right now.  Haruhi was just looking at me with annoyance, as though I was just messing around, and behind his enigmatic smile, even Koizumi looked concerned.  I was _sure_ that just a moment ago I had been facing down a god of death with the world falling apart around my ears, but how could I be sure of that when suddenly it was all back to normal and nobody else remembered?  Were they all _right_ to be concerned about me?  Was it all real, or had I finally gone completely mad?

 

“Hello everyone, it’s great that you’re all working so hard!  I’ll help you clean up in a minute, but I’ll make us some tea first…”

 

I forgot even the question of whether I had lost my mind when I heard Mikuru’s voice as she entered the room.  I could only stare at her as she made her way over to the tea set and started to boil the kettle.

 

“Kyon?  Is everything okay?” she asked, when she realised I was staring.

 

_You died today.  I saw your body.  I stood beside you as your hands grew cold_.

 

“I’m just… glad to see you, Mikuru.”

 

She started to blush at the same time that Haruhi hit me with her broom again.  “Don’t be so familiar!  Mikuru-chan is your senior, so she’s Asahina-san to you!”

 

That doesn’t stop _you _from being familiar with her, Haruhi…  That was the first normal thought to enter my head.  But Mikuru… Asahina-san… she was _dead_ only half an hour ago.  How can I be annoyed at Haruhi right now?  Am I forgetting what happened already?  How do I even know what was real?

 

“Kyon?” Haruhi jerked me around to look at her again, and I was surprised to see her looking concerned.  “Are you okay?  You look kind of pale.”

 

“I request permission to take the rest of the afternoon off, Chief,” I muttered, in a daze.  Haruhi must have been in shock at the way I called her ‘Chief’ for once, because she let me go immediately.  I bolted straight out of the room, not daring to look at Asahina-san before I left.

 

As I ran out of the school and all the way home, as I lay on my bed all afternoon and evening, it wasn’t the image of Asahina’s face that haunted me.  When I closed my eyes, trying to sleep yet always remaining wide awake, all I could see in my mind’s eye was the look Haruhi wore as I ran out of the club room.  Haruhi Suzumiya was concerned that _I_ was going crazy.  And worse still, I was starting to think she was right.

 

It would be better if my memory had been erased.  These events were so shocking that I wasn’t sure whether anything had happened.  By the time Ryuk appeared through my bedroom wall, I had almost convinced myself that the past few weeks had been one long delusion.  If I never knew which version of events was real, I would never know whether I was sane or not.  Or perhaps that was the very definition of insanity.  It was as though I didn’t know whether I was asleep or awake.

 

“So why do I remember everything, when everyone else has forgotten?” I asked again.

 

“There are some things about the Death Note that even the shinigami do not know,” said Ryuk, at last.

 

That’s not a very satisfactory explanation.

 

“Well, it’s the truth,” he said, with a shrug.  “However, the fact that I am talking to you at this moment should be proof that the events that you remember occurring since I first appeared to Haruhi Suzumiya really did happen to you.”

 

And yet Mikuru is still alive.

 

“As I said, there are many things that even we don’t know.  It seems you were right all along.  Haruhi Suzumiya is a being far more powerful than I would have imagined.  She’s just proven that she’s more powerful than any god of death.”

 

“You’re glad of that, aren’t you?  You liked her.”  Suddenly I was angry, and it wasn’t jealousy this time.  “You’d better not be thinking of giving that note back to her.  After all the trouble you’ve caused, there’s no way I’ll let you do that.”

 

He laughed.  “There’s nothing you could do to stop me if I wanted to.  Who do you think you are?”

 

I’m the one chosen by Suzumiya Haruhi.  And that means something.

 

“Well, you needn’t worry.  I’ve already passed the book on to someone else.  A student at another high school.  He shows a lot of promise.  A very interesting individual.”

 

But not like Haruhi?

 

“No.  He has a talented mind, but he’s an ordinary human.”

 

I guess I won’t be seeing Ryuk any more.  Suddenly, that seemed a little sad, and also a little scary.  If Ryuk is what proves that I’m sane, how will I know what really happened if Ryuk is no longer around?

 

He laughed.  “Look out for the deaths of criminals on the news, for one thing.  But it might do you good to look at those papers Haruhi gave you before she returned the Death Note.”

 

The small wad of papers she had pressed into my hand when she said goodbye.  It had been in my pocket all day and I picked it up from where it had fallen beside my bed.

 

“I don’t know exactly why you kept your memory when everyone else lost theirs.  It may be because of the Death Note, or it may be that Haruhi didn’t want anyone to remember.  Those papers she gave you are a page torn from the Death Note, a page she’d written on.”

 

And that’s why I remember?

 

“Perhaps.  You might want to keep them as a reminder.”

 

“A reminder of what?  That all those things really happened?  It’s just a piece of paper.”

 

“It does just look like a piece of paper.  Perhaps it _is_ an ordinary piece of paper.  But if you ever want to know for sure, there’s a way that you can test it.”

 

He leaned down so his face was closer to mine, and I started to wish he would leave.

 

“You might not be the owner of the Death Note, Kyon, but a piece of paper torn from the Death Note works the same way.  If you ever want to prove to yourself that all those things really happened, all you have to do is write down a person’s full name on that piece of paper, while picturing their face in your mind.  I guarantee you: within forty seconds, that person will die.”

 

I’m not a killer.

 

“Really?  You’re not curious enough to try it?  Not even on, say, a criminal?”

 

“Get out, Ryuk.  My mind is overloaded enough as it is.  Don’t go asking me to kill.  The only person I want to kill right now is you!”

 

He shrugged.  “As you wish, I’ll leave.  Perhaps you really don’t have what it takes to kill.  But humans are curious creatures.  Haruhi didn’t use the Note except by accident, and she’s more curious than most.  But the truth is, Kyon, you’re more daring than her, and you know it.”

 

Ryuk seemed to be aiming for a dramatic departure for once, and I realised that he was gradually fading.  Like the Cheshire Cat, it was that creepy leer, the only smile in the world more annoying than Koizumi’s, that was the last to vanish.

 

“Thanks, Kyon.  You’ve always been very… interesting.”

 

And with that, for the last time, he was gone.

 

I looked at the piece of paper folded in my hand.  It was an evil thing, and I wanted to burn it right then.  I want to think that I would never use it to kill, but what if Ryuk were right about me?  I ddin’t want the temptation.  What if I really was that inquisitive a person?  What if one day I decided to test it out?  I don’t want to be tempted to kill someone, especially not in such a cowardly way.  Maybe I do have a curious nature, but the question of whether I’d ever use a Death Note to kill is something that I’d rather not find out about myself.  It would be safer to burn it, and perhaps then I would forget everything that happened.

 

It would be safer to forget, but it’s not what I did.  I don’t want to forget kissing Mikuru.  I don’t want to forget Koizumi’s courage and hard work, no matter how it irritates me to compliment him, and I don’t want to forget the way Nagato came to realise how much the SOS Brigade means to her.

 

I don’t want to forget that I once told Haruhi I loved her, even though I don’t know if I will ever say those words to her again.

 

I told Haruhi I didn’t want to forget, and this was the way out that she gave me.  Even if it terrified me to keep a piece of the Death Note in my possession, I wouldn’t let her actions go to waste.  I wouldn’t make this gift from Haruhi a waste.  I’ll keep my memories, and if it sometimes makes me feel like I’m going crazy, then at least I have this to remind me that I’m not.

 

Finally, I unfolded the paper and began to read.

 

_Everything’s gotten so boring again lately.  Why doesn’t anything exciting happen?  I hate it all.  I hate this whole life.  Kyon said I should try writing a diary.  That moron.  I wish he’d just shut up once and for all.  What good does writing in a diary do?  I just found this stupid thing on the ground so I’m trying it, but it’s not making me feel any better.  This is dumb.  Still, I guess at least Kyon is happy with things like this…_

 

_This_ is the proof of my sanity?  Haruhi was using the Death Note as a _diary_ to complain about me?  Hey, Ryuk, shouldn’t you be coming back to tell me that this was all an amusing joke?

 

Yet even if the joke was on me, I was the one who was laughing.

 

With that, I pushed the handful of torn pages safely under my mattress, and fell into a deep, relaxing sleep for what felt like the first time in a month.


End file.
